A Covered Flame
by SamCyberCat
Summary: A man who was never meant to admit his feelings for a co-worker does just that and causes history to spiral out of control because of it. What would the world do if the sacrifice lives but the hero dies? One-sided Dimitri/Claire, Layton/Claire.
1. Chapter 1

Notes – There's a bit of a story behind this one. A while back I received a comment on one of my Dimitri/Claire fics saying that I should do another one where Dimitri admits his feelings to her. My first thoughts were that I could never do that, the whole beauty of their relationship is the one-sided, angst-ridden attraction he had for her! But the more I thought about it, the more the question of "What could have happened if he had told Claire that he liked her before the explosion?" went through my head and this story was born to try to answer that question. It's the first time in a lot of years that I've written a multi-chaptered piece this long and I've worked really hard on this one, so I hope that it's enjoyable to read. It starts during the flashback period of the third game and will contain spoilers for the entire first trilogy in a roundabout sort of way.

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><p>Claire was a good worker and everyone knew that. She never complained. She just quietly got on with her tasks, smiling to herself. Although sometimes she would be not-so-quiet and burst into excited exclamations when she felt they were making progress on their project.<p>

All in all she was the model scientist – intelligent, eager and hard-working. Dimitri was always proud to have her as part of the team.

On the other hand, Bill saw her as little more than hired help and frowned upon Dimitri for his favouritism of her.

"It really is quite sickening, you know," Bill muttered, snapping Dimitri back to reality.

"Huh? What is?" Dimitri asked, guiltily.

"The way you look at her. You must know she has a boyfriend," clarified Bill.

"Oh yes, of course…" mumbled Dimitri.

He did indeed know very well that Claire was involved in a relationship with a man called Hershel Layton. And he was happy for them, really he was. If Claire was the perfect woman than Layton was the perfect man to match her - he was pleasant, studious and everything that a girl could want in a guy. He… possessed all of the qualities that Dimitri lacked, save for the studious part. But sadly because Layton was such a nice guy it was hard to resent him for all his qualities.

So Dimitri just lived with a silent attraction to a girl he could never have festering in his heart.

"You really are pathetic," Bill said, bluntly.

"I know," Dimitri replied.

"If it were me then I'd not let anything stand in the way of getting the woman that I wanted," Bill went on.

"I pity the girl you ever set your eyes on then," Dimitri said, it sounded light-hearted enough, but he truly meant it.

Bill growled; "She'd be luckier than any girl who has you moping after her forever."

"Well… I could have told Claire how I feel if I wanted to," argued Dimitri.

"No you couldn't," Bill laughed, "You wouldn't want to make waves."

"It wouldn't be making any waves, it's not as if I'd want her to leave Hershel or anything just because I like her," Dimitri protested, not adding the part that it would just make things extremely awkward between them at work.

"Go on then! Tell her how you feel, if you're brave enough," snorted Bill.

Dimitri glanced over at Claire, who was far enough away for their conversation to not be overheard by her, happily getting on with her work.

"I can't tell her just like that…"

"Wuss."

Pulling himself up to his full height, Dimitri stormed past Bill and made his way over to Claire.

"Oh, Dimitri," Claire said cheerfully, "I think we're making real progress on the time machine now, with any luck we should be ready for a test run soon enough. Isn't that great?"

"Y-yes…" he stammered, suddenly losing his nerve a bit, "Claire, I know this is quite sudden but… there's something I need to talk to you about, away from work." He didn't want to give Bill the satisfaction of watching him fail to pour his heart out right there.

She paused for a moment, and then replied, "All right, but can it wait? I promised that I'd meet Hershel later."

"It's… it's pretty important," he said, feeling worse about what he was doing as he went on talking.

"In that case I'll meet up with you after seeing Hershel, it shouldn't be a problem," Claire replied, "At your house?"

"S-sure…" That was as good a place to throw his pride away as any.

"I'll meet you around six o'clock then," said Claire, who was always more direct about arranging things, "But you must excuse me, I don't want to risk being late for my other meeting."

It was just then that Dimitri noticed that there was a large box on the floor. It looked like a hat box, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a hat that tall. She picked it up and put it on the table.

"A present?" Dimitri guessed.

"Yes, just a little something for Hershel. He's going to love it," Claire replied, smiling.

"You should… um, you should go now. Bill and I can handle the rest of the clearing up," said Dimitri.

"Are you sure? Well, all right then. I'll see you later," Claire answered, getting up to fetch her jacket.

"S-see you…" Dimitri mumbled, watching her leave.

"You did not just give her the afternoon off," Bill growled from behind him, making Dimitri start.

"We just have cleaning to finish up here, don't be so petty," answered Dimitri.

Shaking his head, Bill commented, "We were planning on pushing the test date forward. The girl was going to meet me here tonight to run through a few final checks."

"While I'm not opposed to more checks I've told you before that the machine isn't ready to be tested just yet," Dimitri commented, "If checks are really all you were planning to do then I can assure you that I won't be keeping Claire away very long."

"Good, we've wasted enough time here already because of your silly attraction," grumbled Bill, as if he wasn't the one to prompt Dimitri's meeting with Claire in the first place.

From there the afternoon seemed to drag on forever. The cleaning itself didn't take very long and Dimitri soon found himself back at home, but from that point onwards he seemed to spend every moment glancing towards the clock, waiting for 6:00pm to arrive as if it was the time of his final judgement. In some ways it could well have been.

At long last, the moment arrived and a gentle tap could be heard at the door.

Dimitri darted over quicker than he intended to, pulling the door open and greeting his guest.

"Claire… hello! Um, do come in…" he said.

"Thank you very much," she giggled, walking past him.

Suddenly he became aware of how unorganised his apartment was, but seeing that Claire had been here many times before to discuss work on the time machine with him that probably wasn't too much of an issue. Chances were that was what she thought he'd called her over to talk about anyway.

"Can I get you some tea?" he offered.

"No thanks, I've just had some," Claire replied, heading through to the living room and taking a seat, "So what was it that you wanted to talk about? Bill and I are going to check the machine over later if it was anything to do with that."

"No, not at all," Dimitri admitted, sitting on the sofa next to her, "Bill did mention your overtime work, though. You don't have to do that if you don't want to."

"Nonsense, I want to see this project completed just as much as either of you two do," she scolded, "And anyway, if I meet you to talk about work out of hours I don't see why I should do the same for Bill."

"We're… not actually here to talk about work," Dimitri confessed.

"Oh?" Claire said, leaning forward, just enough so that Dimitri suddenly felt more uncomfortable than he already was. She seemed to be smirking too; "You never want to talk about anything but work. It's nice to hear you're coming out of your shell a bit. Do you want my advice on something?"

"Not exactly," he gulped.

"Oh darn, for a moment I thought you had a girl that you liked and you needed help winning her over," teased Claire.

"I… do have a girl that I like…" he mumbled, suddenly feeling a lump in his throat.

"You do? Then why didn't you tell me?" Claire gasped.

"Because…"

"Because?"

"…The girl that I like… it-it's you, Claire…"

There was a very definite silence.

Dimitri thought he felt his heart stopping, but after a few moments of them still staring at each other with him not appearing to be dead he reasoned that mustn't be the case.

"You… you what…?" Claire managed, after more than a whole minute.

"I'm sorry! I know you love Hershel and I wouldn't want to-"

Claire put her hand on top of his, effectively silencing him.

"Dimitri, you don't have to apologise for how you feel," she said firmly, "But you are right, I do love Hershel…"

"And I know that, which was why I never wanted to tell you, but…" He couldn't think of anything to follow that 'but'. Confessing his feelings to her was probably the dumbest thing he'd ever done in his life…

She looked across at him, her usually cheerful expression replaced with a sadness that he never wanted to be on her face, least of all when he was the reason for putting it there.

"You poor thing…" she whispered, "We've been working together for such a long time and you've always been living with these feelings…?"

"Y-yes," he said, taken aback that she was being so understanding about the matter. Most girls would have screamed at him and left. But then Claire wasn't most girls.

She thoughtfully commented, "But we've… known each other a bit longer than I've known Hershel."

"And he just happened to be better at this than me," Dimitri said, he knew the answer to that one at least, "I missed my chance with you…"

Claire pulled away from him to reflect on all this for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure what she would say next, as all of this was a lot to take in.

"Can we sit for a while?" she asked.

"W-what do you mean…?" Dimitri replied.

"Just sit. Like this. Not talking or anything," Claire confirmed.

"A-all right…"

It was a bit of a strange request, but then he'd just made an even stranger confession to her and had no place to protest.

The two sat in silence, staring into space. It felt so uncomfortable, so wrong. Dimitri just wished that he could go back to this morning, when he hadn't told her that he had feelings for her and the two of them were just two friends talking about science together.

He had no idea how long they sat for. In contrast to when he'd been waiting for her to arrive, Dimitri had now completely stopped caring about the time.

One person who did care very much about the time, however, was Hershel Layton.

The man had been pacing his living room, trying to stop his newly gifted top hat from slipping off his head and wondering where Claire was. She had said that she was going to work but he'd never expected her to take this long. After some thought, Layton decided that it wouldn't be inappropriate to call the lab to check on her.

"Hello, this is Hershel Layton," he said, when someone answered his call, "Is Claire there?"

"No, she isn't," grumbled Bill, annoyed at how long Dimitri had been holding her up for.

"Oh. Um, well… she said she was going to go to work after she left earlier," Layton replied.

Yes, but she hasn't bothered to show up, was what Bill wanted to say. And when she does there's a chance that Dimitri will be with her and then I'll have no test subject to throw into the time machine because he'd never permit it. If only there was someone else to use…

"Hello? Are you still there?" Layton cut-in.

…Yes. It was perfect.

"Sorry about that, I was just checking out of the window. It appears that Claire has just shown up, so you should probably come over to meet her," Bill lied.

"But if she's just turned up then I'm sure she has a lot of work to do," reasoned Layton.

"I think she needs you here," said Bill, vaguely.

"Oh? Well a gentleman should never keep a lady waiting," Layton said, "I'll see you in a few moments."

Yes, see to it that you do, Bill thought, hanging up the phone.

What a bizarre turn of events that Claire would arrive at work so late then demand to see him instead of just coming to his house, was what was running through Layton's mind. But then Claire wouldn't do something like that without a reason and it was his duty to find out what that reason was.

He pulled on his jacket and headed to the labs as fast as he could, not forgetting to put on the hat that Claire had given him. He had promised to wear it, after all.

It all seemed very quiet, so he pulled the door open hesitantly.

"Claire? Are you here?" Layton whispered, as if worried about disturbing someone.

"Good, you've arrived," Bill said, walking over to him.

"I came as soon as I could. So… where is she?" questioned Layton.

"Claire is just in the backroom getting ready for the test run," replied Bill.

"Test run?" Layton echoed.

"Yes, she might not have mentioned it. You see, we've finally got the time machine into a position where we can test it on human subjects, and Claire, being the star pupil that she is, has offered to be the one we use for the tests," Bill confirmed.

Nodding, Layton agreed, "That does sound very like her, this work means so much to Claire."

"But the problem is that she's so nervous," Bill added, "I think that's why she hasn't said anything to you, she doesn't want to worry you. Because let's face it, being the first human in a time machine is a very uncertain leap for science and we don't know what could happen to her."

"Y-yes…" agreed Layton, suddenly not so sure he should be allowing his partner to go through with something so potentially dangerous.

"It would break her heart not to go ahead with this, though. Imagine all those months of production wasted because she lost her nerve," said Bill, "If only there was someone else…"

"Don't you have others working on the project?" said Layton, instantly feeling bad for suggesting someone else should put their life on the line.

Shaking his head, Bill said, "I'm needed here to help if anything does go wrong during the test and Dimitri… well, that man is nowhere to be found."

"Curious…" mumbled Layton, who had never put Dimitri down to being a coward.

"Well, I better go tell Claire to come through for the test," Bill said, turning to walk away.

"Wait!" Layton called, and Bill tried very hard not to grin, "What if… I was to do it instead?"

"But you're not a scientist," Bill mock-protested, turning back to look at him.

"I wouldn't need to be just to stand in this contraption, correct?" said Layton, looking at the time machine, "That way you could test it and not put Claire at risk."

"She wouldn't be happy to know that you're doing this," Bill pointed out.

"She… she wanted me to be a gentleman and this is what a gentleman does," Layton told him, with an air of finality.

"Very well, you seem determined so I won't try to stop you," said Bill, "Just step this way…"

Layton followed him, taking off his hat and passing it to Bill, who placed to one side, before standing in the time machine and trying to mask the bundle of nerves he was feeling. If this worked then he could end up at some unknown point of the future with no idea how to return. If it didn't work then… then he'd rather not think of the consequences. At least it would be happening to him and not to Claire.

All the same it was rather daunting not knowing what the immediate future held…

He watched Bill as the metallic door to the machine clanged shut and then he could see nothing but darkness all around him. For a moment he could have sworn that Bill was smiling as the door closed, but then he was probably just excited to see all his hard work come to completion.

In truth, what Bill was exited about was the fame and fortune that would come with being the first man ever to create a working time machine. Balderdash to Dimitri! Bill was the one here right now, so he would be the man who'd go down in history.

As for what would happen to Hershel Layton…

Bill flicked the switch.

…He couldn't care less what happened to Hershel Layton.

The machine whirred into life – it was loud, it was revolutionary, it was… glorious! People must have been able to hear the noise from down the street, and Layton could certainly here it from trapped inside.

"M-mr. Hawks…? Is it supposed to be this loud? Mr. Hawks? Can you hear me! Mr. Hawks…!" he yelled, banging on the door.

"Sorry, Layton, you're the sap who got in there so you reap what you sow," laughed Bill.

He was ecstatic, too much so to notice that the noises were louder than they should be and that the metal plates were hissing out steam where they shouldn't be, and…

…By the time the first spark of the fire came it was too late to stop it. Although Bill might have been able to switch the contraption off if he'd thought faster on his feet, he was too scared to risk putting himself in further harm, darting for cover to the sound of Layton's yells.

The explosion came soon afterwards.

If they hadn't heard the machine starting up then the people of London did indeed here that.

Including from Dimitri's house, not too many streets away, where he and Claire had continued to sit in silence this whole time.

"What was that?" Dimitri said, getting to his feet and heading for the window.

"It… sounded like it might have been from the lab, I hope it's nothing serious," Claire said, walking over behind him.

"There's fire! It's a fire, Claire! In the street where the lab is!" Dimitri yelled, turning to look at her, face filled with horror.

"Let's go then!" she said firmly, both of them darting for the door.

By the time they'd got there a crowd had already gathered around the street and the blaze was too high for anyone to get any closer. The police hadn't quite picked up on it yet, but the general public had and were all either not prepared to miss out on the show or screaming in horror for the potential loss of loved ones.

Falling into the latter category was a young boy called Clive. He knew that he'd stayed out later than he should have done but had never for a moment thought that this was the sight that he'd return home to.

His parents were in there! They were his whole life! What could he ever do without them…?

Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't too late to save them.

With no kindly gentleman there to stop him, Clive ran into the fire to find his parents and burned alive…


	2. Chapter 2

Notes – I'm sorry if my use of the police force in this isn't 100% accurate to life. They were more of a method to keep the flow of things moving than anything else. Also, even though Clive's fate wasn't addressed in this chapter be sure that I'm not ignoring it and that it is coming up.

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><p>The blaze burned well into the night, with much damage to property and probable loss of life.<p>

There was very little that the police could do about it, short of keeping the bystanders away while the fire department got on with their job. It was horrific. People stood as close as they could, hoping that perhaps the people they knew who lived there might come out alive.

Among that crowd were Dimitri and Claire, although for them the sense of tragedy was mixed with that of puzzlement. It was the lab that started the fire, that much was clear, but they didn't know anything further about what had happened.

"Bill definitely said he was going to meet you there later?" Dimitri asked, trying to get his facts straight.

"Y-yes, though I have to be honest, the amount of time I spent at your house made me run behind a lot," Claire replied.

He nodded; "So we can assume that he was the one in there. And that perhaps he started the time machine for a test run, poor, foolish man…" Claire sobbed quietly at the thought that their fellow scientist might be lost. When it became obvious that she had nothing more to add, Dimitri continued to think out loud, "But that doesn't make sense… You need two people to run the time machine. He wouldn't have been able to operate it from the inside. Who could he possibly have used…?"

There were only the three of them currently working on the time machine project. With him and Claire both being accounted for it didn't leave many other options.

"I don't know, it… it's really hard to think straight…" Claire sniffed, staring into the fire. After a moment her eyes went wide and she gasped, "Hershel might think I was in there! I told him that I was going to work later!"

"You'd better call him so he doesn't jump to any conclusions," replied Dimitri.

Claire nodded, before stepping into the nearest phone booth to ring Layton's house. But after a short while she walked out again, looking forlorn.

"He isn't answering…" she mumbled.

"Perhaps he's already here looking for you," Dimitri suggested.

"M-maybe…" Claire agreed, "Um, I know it's a lot to ask, but would you mind staying here while I dash over to check his house? That way if he does turn up there's more of a chance one of us will find him."

"By all means, I'll keep an eye out for him here," Dimitri replied.

"Th-thank you, I'll try to be quick…" Claire said quietly, turning to dart away.

In a way Dimitri was glad to stay here, because it meant that he'd sooner find out any news of what was happening inside of the burning street. Looking out for Layton also posed as a half-hearted distraction from the awkward confession he'd made to Claire earlier that evening mocking him throughout his mind…

The night went on and Claire did not come back. He theorised that she hadn't found him at home and probably went to Gressenheller University to see if he was there. Even in her distressed state, Claire would surely have called him if there had been any success.

Eventually, the fire reduced itself to a pile of burning embers and smoke, which masked the true damage that it had caused from the glow of morning's first light. Now that the fire department had done their job it was the turn of the police to search the remains, pulling out any survivors and trying to confirm the dead.

An officer who had been eyeing Dimitri for some time over the course of the disaster chose now to speak to him.

"Are you one of the scientists who worked in that lab?" he asked.

"Yes," Dimitri answered. Seeing as he was still dressed in his lab coat it was hard to deny it. "But I know as little about this as anyone else. There's a chance that one of my co-workers might have ran an experiment without permission that caused the explosion, but that's really all I can tell you."

The man looked at him thoughtfully for a while, then said, "Stick around. We might need you to confirm what we find at the lab."

"I had no intention of leaving," Dimitri assured him.

It was later on in the morning, still with no word from Claire, when he was called over by the same officer to take a look at something in the wreckage.

"First of all, I have to tell you that we pulled out a survivor from the labs," the officer informed, "He was in pretty bad shape, so we've already sent him off to hospital, but from the looks of things he'll probably make it. Short fellow, wore glasses."

"That would be Bill," Dimitri said, nodding. At least that was one person confirmed as all right.

"Now for the gruesome part," continued the officer, looking uncomfortable, "I know that no one likes to do this, but we found a body inside the building and were wondering if you could take a look to try to confirm the identity."

"O-of course," Dimitri stammered, curious to know who Bill's unfortunate co-worker had been.

He was lead across to the lab building, looking through what was left of the door to see that some men were gathered around the broken remains of the time machine. It did not look good.

"Do you know this man?" asked the officer.

Dimitri covered his mouth with his hands, lest he lose his stomach. He knew this man very well. This poor, undeserving person whose lifeless body lay broken beyond repair in front of him. No… it couldn't be…

…It was Hershel Layton.

The bile was building up in the back of his throat, but he managed to tell the men who Layton was and answer a few basic questions about him to the best of his knowledge. The one that both stumped him and horrified him was if Layton had any family who could be contacted.

"I don't know about his family," Dimitri said, "But he had a… a girlfriend called Claire, Claire Foley… And oh god, she doesn't know about this! Or I think she doesn't, at least. Please, I need to go tell her!"

"Easy there, man, it's our duty to tell the friends and family," reasoned the officer.

"No, she was out looking for him and I don't know where she's gone, you've got to let me go find her!" Dimitri insisted.

The officer looked towards his superior, who shrugged and said, "We've got all we need from him at the moment. If we need anything else we have his name and address."

"Very well, you can go," the officer told Dimitri.

"Th-thank you!" Dimitri called, almost half way out of the door when he said it.

He had to find Claire! She needed to know about this from one of her friends before the police found her and told her the hard way! She looked so sad, so helpless, last night… Who knew what she might do if she found out that her partner was dead…

His first stop was her home, but he wasn't all too surprised to find that she wasn't there. So he moved next to look at every place he could possibly think that Layton might go where Claire would try to look for him. Last of all this led him to Layton's house. Having only been familiar with the man through a mutual friendship with Claire, Dimitri had never been there before and found the prospect of barging in now, knowing he was dead, more than a little intimidating.

But this was the last place that Claire could be.

Expecting to find the door locked, he instead was able to push it open with little effort. He then looked around to see that nothing was out of order here. Unlike the chaos of the explosion site, this house just had a very lived-in feel to it, although there was the air that it had been searched through recently. All of the doors to the rooms had been left wide open.

Dimitri walked through to the nearest door, which turned out to lead to the living room. There, Claire had curled herself up on the sofa to sleep, face stained with dry tears. She was clearly waiting for her partner to return home to her…

"Claire…" Dimitri whispered, leaning down.

"…Huh… Hershel…?" she mumbled, lifting her head up, "Oh, Dimitri… Sorry that I didn't call. I… got distracted looking for Hershel and then just nodded off here…"

"Th-that's okay," he assured, trying hard to come up with a way he could tell her this. No one wanted to be the bearer of bad news. "But I have something to tell you, about Hershel…"

"Did he show up?" Claire asked, sitting up and staring at him with wide eyes.

"Well… um… You see, they found Bill alive, but-"

"That's good news at least. What about Hershel, though?" Claire pressed.

"W-when we'd been wondering about who… who could have helped him with the time machine, it turned out that person… was Hershel…" Dimitri told her.

Claire froze completely. From where he was sitting, it looked to Dimitri as if her heart had stopped. She stared at him, silently begging him not to confirm what she thought he was going to confirm.

"Please don't say…" she managed, after a moment.

"I'm… very sorry Claire…" he whispered.

Her face filled with tears and she put her head into her hands to cry bitterly at what she had just discovered. Dimitri watched her shoulders bob up and down in the effort to hold back the noisy sobs.

"He can't…! He can't be dead…" Claire choked, "Why would he even be there? He has nothing to do with the lab!"

"I don't know," Dimitri said, unhelpfully.

"Unless… no! Oh, please no!" Claire cried, making him jump.

"What is it?" Dimitri asked.

She stared at him and replied, "Hershel had been expecting me to go to the lab after meeting him. He must have gone looking for me when I didn't come back after so long!"

"That doesn't explain why he was in the machine," mused Dimitri.

"It doesn't matter! He went there because of me! Because I took too long. Because… because…" Claire trailed off.

"Because?" prompted Dimitri.

"…Because of you," finished Claire.

"W-what!" Dimitri gasped, looking at her through fearful eyes.

"If you… if you had never told me how you felt I'd have… have gone to the lab and he'd never have gone to meet me there…" she clarified.

"But then you might have died instead!" Dimitri protested.

"I don't care! Hershel is dead and that's what matters! I want him back, Dimitri, I want him to come back!" screamed Claire.

She got to her feet and ran through the door that he had left open on his way in. His natural instinct told him to go stop her, but after what she'd just heard there was little he could do to console her. The sound of her voice, accusing him for what had happened to Layton echoed throughout his mind until long afterwards.

Eventually, he realised he was sat staring into space on the sofa of a dead man's house. A dead man whose house he had no business being in. So Dimitri pulled himself up and trailed home in a dream-like state, hardly keeping track of what was going on amidst the images of the fire, of Layton's dead body and of Claire's accusation that were playing over again and again in his head.

He didn't eat or drink or do anything else as long as he sat, so perhaps it was a good thing when the ringing of the phone snapped him momentarily back to reality.

"Is this Dimitri Allen?" came an official-sounding voice down the line.

"Y-yes, can I help you?" Dimitri answered, on auto-pilot.

"This is the police. You have no reason to be alarmed, but you are a suspect in the explosion that happened yesterday and we need to bring you in for questioning," the man told him.

"A suspect?"

This seemed to snap him back to his sense a little.

"Yes, a man who was taken into hospital earlier, Bill Hawks, has informed us that you and one of your co-workers were the ones who set up the test that caused the explosion. We're sending some men around to pick you up right now. Please don't try to leave, we only want to know the truth," said the man.

Bill… had told the police that Dimitri and Claire had caused the explosion? Why would he do something like that that?

"Very well…" Dimitri managed to reply.

"They should be there in a few minutes," was the last words he heard from the man on the other end, before the phone was hung up.

A few minutes.

So many things can run through someone's mind in a few minutes.

Perhaps he would be taken in for questioning and found to be innocent of all this. But if Bill lied about who cause the explosion he might lie about anything else. So it came down to which of the two they believed. At least he had an alibi in his location from Claire…

…Claire!

They were bringing her into question too! In her vulnerable state this could cause her even more damage. That was the last thing she needed. He had to help her!

In his moment of panic, Dimitri fled the house, managing to put a few streets between it and him before he could hear the faint sound of police alarms surrounding it. Now he was a man on the run, which was probably as bad as confessing your guilt. But he didn't care. What he cared about was getting to Claire and helping her before the police put a black mark on her name.

He rushed towards her home, trying his best to stay out of sight from anyone who could inform the police of the direction he was headed in. As he burst through the door of Claire's house he knew that he probably had a few minutes at best before the police decided to search here instead when they didn't find him at his own home.

"Claire!" he called out.

"…I don't want… to talk…" she droned.

The voice sounded like it was coming from the living room, where Dimitri followed it to find her perched on the edge of a seat and staring into space.

"Claire, we need to get out of here!" Dimitri insisted, reaching over to grab her arm.

She made no effort to stop him, but the lack of reaction was just as scary.

"Where does it matter where I am…? Hershel isn't here… Or anywhere…" she muttered.

"Look, Bill is trying to frame us for the explosion, for what happened to Hershel, and if we don't get out of here soon we might both be arrested," Dimitri frantically tried to reason with her.

She still just looked at a fixed point in the wall, replying, "They can arrest me if they like… It doesn't matter…"

"T-to me, it does," he whimpered.

They were going to be here soon. They'd arrest them both and with Claire in this state she'd never testify and Bill would get away with this murder. But what could he do? She didn't care enough to act for herself…

Dimitri looked out the window to see if there was any sign of them yet, reasoning that foolish impulse had got him this far so he might as well go with it for the rest of the way.

"Claire, I'm sorry…"

He walked over to her, picking up her unresisting frame and carrying her out of the house via the backdoor. This was it. He was forcing them to run. Maybe they'd make it and maybe they wouldn't, but the bottom line was that he had to at least try to protect Claire.

If he truly was the reason that Hershel Layton was dead then that was all he could do.


	3. Chapter 3

Notes – This chapter contains a fictional view of the afterlife, just thought I'd point that out for if anyone's sensitive about that sort of thing.

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><p>Hershel Layton was a man who had just become the Professor of Archaeology at Gressenheller University.<p>

Those who knew him were proud of his achievements, of course, but overall he was a speck on the importance of society. Just a man making his way through life the best he could. Or that had been what he had thought when he had died.

Layton was not a superstitious person by nature. He believed in archaeology, of what was found buried in the earth. There was no time to ponder the uncertainty of what happened once your life came to an end in his mind, which was already too full of the riddles of what he could see for certain in front of him everyday.

But when you die, however, you are forced to discover what came next and couldn't put it off any further.

The presence of an 'afterlife' existing at all surprised him enough, but he soon concluded that he shouldn't expect it to feel at all like what life had felt like. It wasn't as if he was experiencing a total lack of feelings right now, but it was more like… like walking through fog while you were half-asleep. Sort of dull and draining. That was the best way he could describe it at the moment.

As a man who asked questions and sought out answers, he soon thought to himself that he needed to discover what was happening now and what came next, if anything.

He found that it wasn't so much as if someone was telling him the answers to these questions as they was just appearing in his mind the moment he thought to consider the questions at all. It wasn't him coming up with his own theories, this was an external source informing him that… that…

…That this was not what came next, not really.

There were no questions about heaven or hell, as Layton wasn't the right person to ask them, just the knowledge that wherever he was, he wasn't truly in the afterlife yet.

How can I get there?

That was the next logical question.

And then he just knew that he couldn't get there, because he wasn't ready yet.

He wondered what he could do to make himself ready.

The knowledge of the reason he wasn't ready appeared in his head and it shocked him to say the least. The problem wasn't as much him who wasn't ready to leave as it was England that wasn't ready to lose him. This baffled him completely. He was just a university professor! What could he mean in the grand scheme of things?

Whether he had intended that question to be answered or not, it was. He suddenly felt flashes of something that wasn't quite his life but wasn't more than just a hand's grasp away from being so appear in his mind's eye. Of a man who solved mysteries and saved lives. A man who… was him. Or who he could have been if he hadn't died.

Not just could have been, but should have been.

He was needed to do all these things, because apparently there was no one else who could do them. It was wrong that Layton had died and until he had set it right there was no way that the afterlife would let him truly move on.

Instead of moaning over his loss or demanding to know how he was supposed to complete these tasks, Layton decided that he would leave and complete them the best that he could. If people were going to be left to cruel fates without him there to help them then it was his duty, as a gentleman, to make sure he helped them in any way possible.

And so he turned to walk back the way that he came, since this was the only logical course of action he could consider in order to return to England.

He didn't seem to be able to gather much concept of time here, but from what he could gather it hadn't been very long before he sensed a change to his environment. Another being. Not a feeling in his head telling him answers, but another soul like his.

It felt like… like it was just off to the left of him, so he headed that way in order to locate it.

For all the feelings Layton lacked personally there were certainly feelings from this other soul, such strong feelings of hatred and anger that pierced the fog-like 'air' around them. The closer he got the sadder he felt for this other being.

Layton's eyes allowed him to focus on what was before him. A small boy with brown hair and a cap, who looked so much like any real, live boy, was curled on the floor, sobbing to himself.

"Hello?" Layton tried, surprised to hear his own voice in this place.

The boy's head snapped up and he looked around wildly before spotting Layton. He probably hadn't expected to see anyone else here either.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

"Hershel Layton," he replied and went to tip his hat, before realising it wasn't on his head. He had taken it off before he's got into the machine, after all…

"Are you a ghost too?" replied the boy, quickly.

"I don't know yet," admitted Layton, "I like to assess my surroundings before coming to a conclusion. But I would like to know who you are."

"My name's Clive," the boy told him, "And I know that I'm a ghost."

"How do you know that you are?" said Layton, interested in how he had come to this conclusion with such certainty.

"Because I wanted to know why I couldn't go be with my family in heaven, but the… thing told me that I couldn't move on because I had unfinished business. And that's what a ghost is, some dead person who can't leave the Earth because they've still got stuff to do," Clive confirmed.

A child's logic. Layton supposed that the term 'ghost' was as good as any for this. It appeared he was in the same situation as Clive was, after all.

"I'm very sorry to hear that. What unfinished business do you have?" asked Layton, wanting to learn as much as he could about what kept people from entering this fabled afterlife in order to help his situation.

Clive looked at him and the fog felt thick with sparks of negative emotion once more; "I want to hurt the people who did this to my family. I want to find them and cause them suffering for starting the big fire from the lab that burned everyone down."

"That's a terrible thing to say! It might not have been someone's fault the explosion happened," said Layton, trying to block the image of Bill's face, the last thing he'd seen before being shut in the time machine, out of his mind.

"I know that… but that's how I feel inside. And because I feel this way I can't move on to heaven or hell or anywhere else," said Clive, "Because I can never get them back for doing this… I don't even know who made the lab blow up in the first place."

"So what are you going to do instead?" Layton questioned.

Clive looked down, and said, "I don't know. Guess I'll just stay here."

"Why don't you come with me then?" said Layton, "I have some errands I need to do too and would enjoy the company."

"Just like that?"

Layton could feel the air clearing of the wave of negative emotions. He was glad of it, as they had been very daunting.

"I don't see why not, if you have nothing else to do," Layton confirmed.

Getting to his feet, Clive walked over to the Professor and gingerly took his hand.

"Very well then, we can go do your jobs together," answered Clive.

Smiling, Layton replied, "Now we need to… to get back to Earth, I suppose."

"Is it this way?" Clive asked, looking up at him and pointing ahead in one direction.

"We shall find out."

The two walked together in the direction Clive had pointed, feeling the fog around them lifting and the world they had once belonged to come slowly into view.

What Layton saw was not what he had been expecting at all.


	4. Chapter 4

Notes – This chapter and the last one are pretty short. I thought about combining them into one because of that, but they covered pretty stand-alone areas of the story so left them as they were.

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><p>Perhaps because it had always been the centre of his life, Layton had just assumed that when he got back to Earth that London would be where he turned up at. But this piece of rural countryside was definitely not London.<p>

"Where are we, Mr. Layton?" Clive asked, looking around.

"I honestly don't know," replied Layton, ruling out the possibility that Clive had led them to this place somehow, "But wherever it is we are most definitely back on Earth, so that's a good start. Why don't we walk around to see if there are any clues to our location?"

They continued down the road ahead into a village. Although the name was written on a signpost it might as well have not been, because England was filled with so many small villages like this that it was impossible to know all of them. So there was no way to tell how close to London they were from this obscure village's name. Regardless, something inside of Layton prompted him to believe that this was the right way to go, even if it wasn't necessarily towards London.

"People don't seem to see us, do they?" said Clive, after a few minutes of looking around in silence.

"No, they do not. Perhaps I should conclude that your ghost theory is correct, my boy," agreed Layton, "You know, this would normally be something that I consider that a gentleman would never do, but seeing as we are ghosts perhaps different rules apply to us. So… maybe it wouldn't cause too much harm to enter a house."

"Okay," said Clive, who didn't seem to have as much issue with not taking the gentleman's course of action as Layton did, "Do you have any house in mind?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. That one," replied Layton, pointing ahead.

The house he was referring too was a simple detached building in a row of other simple detached buildings. It almost seemed to scream 'I'm just a regular house, don't pay attention to me' in a manner that when you were walking past the house it would probably be the last thing that you noticed on the street. But even so, something was telling Layton that this was the place he needed to be.

As they walked up the stone path, Layton tried not to feel unnerved by their footsteps not making any sound. He then resisted the urge to try the door handle, since there was really no need. The two simply drifted through the door, though he heard Clive try to hold his breath when they past through the solid object and smiled to himself about that.

The inside of the house was just as unimpressive as the outside and to Clive the people it contained must have seemed that way as well, but to Layton those people were very shocking indeed.

…Dimitri and Claire.

Only… not as he remembered them being when he'd last seen them before the explosion.

They both looked so much older, especially Dimitri. His hair was longer now and he seemed to be sporting a hat, but that did nothing to hide the age that excess worry had added to his face. In contrast, Claire was still as beautiful as Layton remembered her being, but definitely older now. However, she wasn't wearing her glasses anymore, for some reason.

This was impossible. It had felt as if it wasn't more than a day since the explosion that had cost Layton his life and yet clearly more time had past for these two.

"Do you know them?" Clive questioned, looking up at Layton curiously as he stared at them.

Layton began, "Y-yes. They were…" he looked at Claire thoughtfully, then continued, "…Friends. Old friends. But the last I saw of them they were in London, before that explosion."

"Maybe they ran away here," Clive said, not seeing the problem.

"That… actually might be likely," said Layton, "But what doesn't make any sense is that they were much younger when I last saw them. The explosion happened just the other day, surely."

"Oh. Then time must pass differently here than in the… wherever we were," Clive replied.

Part of Layton wished that he had the child-like ability to just see what was in front of him and accept it like Clive did. He could never do that though, his mind demanded him to look around to see the smaller details and find the answers through them.

"It's pretty cold for this time of year," Claire said, snapping both of the ghosts' attention to her. She was looking right through them, not seeing them, towards where Dimitri had been sorting through some letters.

Dimitri nodded, replying, "It seems to have come over very suddenly, but yes, I had noticed. I'll go see if the heating's working all right."

The man walked out of the room, leaving Layton to check over the pile of letters that had been left by him. The majority of them were addressed to a Dr. Alan Stahngun, but he could just see the edge of a letter, lower in the pile, marked to a Celeste. He couldn't make out a surname though.

Judging from the surroundings there weren't any other people in this house, so taking that into account Celeste and Alan must be aliases they were using. But why? And why were they living outside of London?

Perhaps… they had needed to evacuate after the explosion. Bill Hawks came to mind again. The three of them had worked together on the project. Had Bill tried to frame the other two for what had happened and they were now in hiding from him?

The most daunting question on his mind was – how long had it been since then?

"The heating seems to be fine," Dimitri said, looking back around the door.

"Hm," Claire hummed, "It's still really cold though. Oh well, I guess it's time that I headed up to bed anyway. See you tomorrow."

"Good night, Claire," Dimitri said, settling down to read as she headed past and up the stairs.

Impulse got the better of Layton, he had to follow Claire. She was his girlfriend, or at least she had been when he was he was alive. He wanted to know what she was doing now, whenever now was.

With some relief, he noted that she went into a single bedroom, separate from Dimitri. So however much time had past it appeared that they were simply living together and not involved with one another. Of course, the gentleman in Layton should have been accepting of her moving on if that had been the case, but this was all too sudden and he didn't know if he'd be ready to take that.

After waiting outside until she was changed (even as a ghost it was still improper to watch a lady changing) he stepped through to the room, wishing that Clive had stayed downstairs instead of following him. Claire settled herself into bed and it didn't seem to be too long before she was fast asleep.

"You should try to talk to her," Clive whispered, looking from one to the other.

"But I'm not alive anymore and she's resting," replied Layton.

"Don't you read ghost stories, Mr. Layton? Ghosts can always talk to people when they're sleeping," informed Clive.

Layton chuckled. It was amusing that Clive regarded fictional stories about ghosts as a point of reference to his new existence. But then, Layton didn't have anything else to go from either.

He reached forward and whispered, "Claire…"

She didn't stir.

It did appear that she was still quite cold, even as she slept, but that was maybe more a side effect of spirits being in her room than anything else. For all intents and purposes, Claire could not hear him.

Pulling back, Layton tried not to feel too disappointed by this.

"Sounds like the other guy's going to bed," Clive said, looking out of the door, "Let's go see him."

"I think I'll just stay here…" mumbled Layton.

"Okay, well I'll be back soon," replied Clive, heading out to follow Dimitri.

Sighing, Layton watched Claire rest. She seemed so peaceful and serene. He was happy to see her face at all, to have been called back to her in a sense, but at the same time it was painful not to be able to communicate with her.

After a few minutes Clive rushed back through again.

"You really have to come see this!" he proclaimed.

"What is it?" Layton queried, looking up in surprise.

"That other guy responds when you talk to him in his sleep," Clive replied.

"Well now, that is progress," said Layton, getting up to head from Claire's room and into Dimitri's. The man lay at rest, but seemed to be just as cold Claire was.

"Listen to this," said Clive, dashing over to Dimitri then yelling, "Wake up!"

Dimitri tossed and turned in his sleep. It could well be that he was just a fitful sleeper, but the timing was a bit too perfect to Clive's yell for that. Just maybe he could hear them somehow…

"Dimitri…?" Layton tried, standing over the sleeping figure.

There was a murmur, but not quite a response.

"I need to ask you for a favour," Layton went on, deciding this was worth a shot. He brought forward an image of the first person whose life he needed to help into his mind. A young girl in an orange dress, sat waiting for her saviour. "I need you to go somewhere…"

The next morning Claire woke up bright and early. She was just buttering her toast when Dimitri slumped into the kitchen. He looked as if he'd had a terrible night. Admittedly, he often looked like that, but even more so today.

"Sleep well?" she teased, putting two plates of toast down on the table.

"V-very," Dimitri yawned, rubbing his eyes, "Had a really odd dream, though."

"Oh?" prompted Claire. He wasn't usually the sort of person who talked very much about dreams.

"It was… um, never mind," he dismissed, "You're not working for the next few days, are you?"

"No, why?" Claire asked, blinking in confusion.

"I was thinking of taking some time off so we could go somewhere for a few days. N-not for any reason, just… because we don't travel around much anymore," he said.

"Sounds interesting, did you have anywhere in mind?" Claire replied.

"Yes," answered Dimitri, trying to remember the place he'd been told about last night, "A village called St. Mystere."


	5. Chapter 5

Notes - This is how the first game was affected by the changes to the timeline. I felt a little unsure about this chapter, since I didn't want to just rewrite the canon, but I hope it's interesting enough regardless.

* * *

><p>"So tell me, why St. Mystere?" Claire asked, watching the trees go past as Dimitri drove them down the winding country roads.<p>

"I… um, well it's a place neither of us have never been to before," replied Dimitri, who wasn't ready to admit that they were going there because a voice he'd heard in his sleep told him to. They were both scientists, so that kind of talk would have made Claire laugh.

She shook her head, commenting, "So is Spain."

"We have a few days and not much money," he answered, frowning down at the map, "Can you take a look at this? I'm having not luck."

Claire took the map from him and read the notes on the side, and then she informed, "St. Mystere is that village there."

"How can you tell?"

"Hershel was always fond of puzzles, he showed me a few," Claire answered, "This one was quite easy."

"Ah, um, okay…" muttered Dimitri, trying to hide his lost dignity at not being able to solve it, "Seems like an odd thing to put on a map though."

"It does," agreed Claire, watching as the houses started to come into view, "What do you know about this place anyway?"

"I know that it's almost cut off from society," said Dimitri, "There used to be a man who owned the estate here, Baron Reinhold, but I think he's pas- …Oh, that's odd."

He pulled up to see that a bridge across what looked like a moat was raised and without it there was no route into the village. A man stood on the other side, glaring at them as if challenging them to talk to him.

"Hello, can you lower the bridge," Claire called, getting out of the car.

"I reckon that I don't want to," the man called back.

"I beg your pardon?" Dimitri growled, following Claire.

The man shouted, "We don't take kindly to strangers here and even if we did there'd be no way that I could let you across as I have no idea which slot to put this crank in to lower the bridge."

"You mean to tell me that your job is to lower this bridge and you have no idea how to do that?" Dimitri muttered, staring in disbelief.

"What was that?" shot the man.

"Nothing! Look, maybe we should just go, Claire, this guy is clearly not going to help us," Dimitri said.

There was a glimmer in Claire's eyes, however, and she observed, "This is just like one of Hershel's puzzles. Would you let us try to help, sir?"

"Um… sure?" the man replied, obviously not used to getting that response from people he was stopping from getting into the village.

"Let's take a look here… Any ideas, Dimitri?" Claire chimed, staring across at the crank.

With other side of the moat, where the crank and slots were, being some distance away it was really hard to tell. If Claire hadn't been present he would have told this guy exactly what slot to fit it into, but as things stood he just felt a cold shudder travel through his mind. And then he knew the answer.

"Why don't you try the first slot?" Dimitri called to the man.

"If you say so," sneered their adversary, inserting the crank into the slot he'd been directed to and lowering the bridge, "Well I'll be, you got it right."

"Yes, well I'm sure if you'd tried all three of them it wouldn't have taken you too long to find the solution for yourself…" mumbled Dimitri.

"So can we come in now?" Claire asked, already half way across the bridge.

"I don't know, you're still stra-"

"Are you being rude to our guests, Franco?"

"N-not at all, Mr. Simon! I was just… welcoming them to our humble village," stammered the man called Franco.

Another person stepped forward, a blonde man whose face was filled by his red-rimmed glasses and large nose; "We don't often get guests to St. Mystere, least of all ones who have working grey matter inside their heads, so you two are most welcome here."

"Thanks… I think," said Dimitri.

"Did you come here for the Golden Apple?" Simon questioned.

"What's the Golden Apple?" Claire replied, seeming interested.

Looking mildly surprised that they didn't know, Simon told her, "It is the treasure of St. Mystere. Left in the late baron's will to anyone who can locate it."

"A treasure hunt?" Claire pressed.

"You could say that, yes. But sadly the Reinhold family's search for the treasure has been less than fruitful, no pun intended. We have been bringing in promising minds to try to solve the riddle, but alas, no one seems to be able to do so."

That explained why he was commenting on our minds, mused Dimitri.

"I don't see why we shouldn't give it a try. What do you think, Alan? This is exactly the sort of thing that Hershel would have loved," Claire said, smiling cheerfully.

It was that last sentence that had Dimitri trapped. Layton probably would have loved something like this and if it wasn't for him perhaps Layton and Claire would be here together working out the answer…

"Yes, I think it'd be worth a shot," he said.

"Very well, the lady will be most pleased," commented Simon, watching them in the manner of a lion regarding fresh meat, "Why don't you follow me to the manor?"

The two walked with their guide to the Reinhold Manor, having to cross a short steam in order to get to it and being made to wait while the lady of the house was made ready for their meeting. After a few minutes they were shown by a short butler through to a room that contained people who seemed more wealthy and important than anyone Dimitri had ever met. He reasoned that these people must all be members of the Reinhold family.

"Greetings," drawled a glamorous woman, "I am Lady Dahlia and this is my estate. Or at least, it is now that my poor husband has past away. Simon informs me that you're here to solve the mystery of the Golden Apple."

"We'll take our best shot at it, Lady Dahlia," said Claire, who seemed to be quite impressed by her charms. Dimitri just thought she looked over-bearing.

"Very well then, I'll fill you in on the details of- …Oh! Claudia! My dear, sweet little Claudia! Come back here this instant!" screamed Lady Dahlia, as an extremely fat and fluffy white cat darted between her legs and out of the open door. Lady Dahlia then rounded upon Dimitri and Claire, "How can you just stand there at a time like this?"

"We were… waiting for you to tell us about the Golden Apple," Dimitri tried.

"You can't expect me to talk about such things when my darling baby has escaped out into the wild!" the lady hissed.

"I reckon she's just outside," Dimitri started, but felt Claire tug on his sleeve.

"I doubt we're going to get much more out of this woman until she's got her cat back," Claire said, quietly, "Why don't we step outside to have a look?"

"Very well," agreed Dimitri, who wasn't opposed to putting some distance between them and the crazy cat lady, "We'll go get your… Claudia back."

"Thank you, I dread to think what could happen to her lost out there," sniffed Lady Dahlia, perching herself on the edge of one of the expensive-looking chairs that decorated the room.

The two showed themselves out, Dimitri sighing with relief once they were far enough away.

"Thank goodness we're out… But I have a feeling that this whole thing might end up being a wild goose chase," he groaned.

"I think its fun," Claire argued, "And besides, there's the cat just over there. Care to try catching her, Dimitri?"

Even after all these years Dimitri still wanted to try as hard as he could to keep Claire happy. They were not romantically involved with one another at all. Claire was still very much in love with Layton, that much was clear, and had, perhaps thankfully, never mentioned Dimitri's confession of his feelings again since that fateful day. That period of time held too many painful memories for them both. They had to move on, not least because their old selves were still wanted by the police for the man slaughter that occurred then. The one thing that Claire couldn't put behind her, however, was her feelings for Hershel.

But Dimitri still tried to do everything he could for her. And if catching this cat made her happy then that would be exactly what he'd do…

By the time the two of them returned to Reinhold Manor, cat resting peacefully in Claire's arms, albeit with her tail swishing threateningly, and Dimitri's hands covered in scratches from their many failed attempts to catch the feline, he was almost ready to call it a day.

"Oh you brought my baby home," cooed Lady Dahlia, rushing to grab Claudia from Claire, "I'm just sorry to say that something awful had to happen while you were away…"

"What do you mean?" Dimitri asked.

"Simon… well, it would be better to see for yourselves…" Lady Dahlia muttered, showing them through to the room they'd been in before.

Claire raised her hands to cover her mouth.

For the second time in his life, Dimitri found himself faced with a dead body. But this one seemed oddly clean compared to the blood-covered mess that Layton's body had been in. There was no question that Simon's limbs were broken beyond repair, however.

A police officer was already inspecting the corpse, but as they entered the room he straightened up.

"Sorry to interrupt, Inspector Chelmey, these are our guests, um…" Lady Dahlia paused awkwardly suddenly aware that she hadn't got their names.

"Alan Stahngun. And this here is Celeste," Dimitri introduced.

"Celeste, what a… charming name," commented the inspector, walking over and taking Claire's hand in a way that made Dimitri's skin crawl, "But is that really what you're called? You look so… familiar."

"Y-yes, I'm called Celeste," Claire said nervously, pulling her hand away from Chelmey.

Did this man know of her from her previous identity? It was possible, but judging from Claire's face it looked like she'd never met him before.

"I sincerely doubt that this charming young woman could have committed the murder. As for the man…" Chelmey growled, glaring at Dimitri with contempt.

"Di- …Alan has been with me the whole time," Claire protested.

Tutting, Lady Dahlia cut in, "I know it wasn't them, they've been looking for Claudia the whole time. Besides, they're just here to solve the Golden Apple case."

"Oh, very well then," said Chelmey, "Then I'll have to ask you all to leave, there's an investigation going on here."

"By all means," said Claire, "Come on, Alan. Eh, what are you looking at?"

A cold wave had shuddered through Dimitri's body again, just like it had done before he felt a whisper of the answer to that puzzle. He didn't want to surrender himself as being superstitious, but at the same time he felt that he should listen to these strange notions. And right now they were telling him to examine the body.

He walked towards the lifeless figure of Simon and bent down.

"Hey! Get away from there! Chelmey yelled.

"Sorry, Inspector, just thought that I saw something," Dimitri replied, getting back up again.

"Clear off!" Chelmey scorned, shooing them out.

After making excuses to Lady Dahlia to get back onto their own case, Dimitri led Claire back out of the house to show her what he had found. Unfolding his hand, he presented her a small cog.

"What's this?" she asked, examining it.

"Looks like a cog from some sort of machine, I found it next to Simon's body," Dimitri answered.

"Then we should tell that Inspector about it," mused Claire.

"Something tells me that wouldn't be a good idea. Let's just keep this to ourselves for now and search for the Golden Apple."

They decided to travel further into the town, asking the locals for any information that they might have on the Golden Apple, since it seemed like a good place to start. Unfortunately, these people had no leads at all and seemed to only present them with their own problems to hinder their progress. Everyone seemed obsessed with brain-teasing puzzles in this village, very unnaturally so. Claire kept saying that Hershel would have been in his element here and Dimitri kept solving them thanks to the cold whispers that seemed to be lurking with him.

By the time the sun began to set they were both considering going back to the manor to inform Lady Dahlia of the disappointing news that they'd made no progress with the investigation.

About half way there, Claire tugged on Dimitri's arm.

"Hey, I think I saw that guy working at the Reinhold Manor! Ramon, was it?" she asked.

"What about him?" hummed Dimitri.

He then turned around to see exactly what the issue with this man was. Ramon was presently having his lifeless body shoved into a sack by a strange-looking old man.

"He must be the murderer! Hey, you!" called Claire, dashing over.

Naturally, as soon as the man realised he had been spotted he made a run for it, demonstrating surprising strength for someone his age by carrying the sack that containing Ramon's body. The two didn't give up chase, following him as far as they could until they realised that they'd hit an unfamiliar section of the village that contained some series of winding alleyways. From there, it must have been easy for their target, being probably more familiar with them, to lose them.

"Damn, we almost hard him!" cursed Claire.

"Just a second…" Dimitri replied, looking down at the floor. That cold whisper had directed him to check there. He was still fighting off the urge to be scared by this almost unnatural helper. He picked up a small cog that the man seemed to have dropped. "Just like the one next to Simon…"

"So you think that they both came from our escaped man?" asked Claire.

"He did seem to be able to move too fast for a human, especially considering what he was carrying," agreed Dimitri.

"A robot? That's just… um, well it's pretty unlikely," Claire replied.

"Either way, I think we probably should report our findings to that inspector now. Perhaps he can make some sense of it," concluded Dimitri.

Admittedly, he wasn't looking forward to having a second round of conversation with Inspector Chelmey, who seemed to have taken an unusual interest in Claire, but it was pretty unavoidable by this point. The two made their way back to the manor and if they were hoping to be pleasantly received there then they were mistaken. Each member of the wealthy Reinhold family, save for the late Simon, were sat waiting for them with solemn faces. The only one who looked vaguely cheerful was Chelmey.

"I see they've finally come back to the scene of the crime. What did I tell you about criminal behaviour?" Chelmey proclaimed.

"I thought that we explained earlier that we weren't involved in Simon's murder," Dimitri replied, on edge about being accused.

"Oh, there's no doubt that sweet Celeste would have had nothing to do with it if she hadn't been forced by you," spat Chelmey, pointing at Dimitri, "But now there's been a second murder there's no doubt you did it!"

"How do you know about Ramon…?"

"See! A confession! He already knows before we've told him!"

"No, I mean it. How do you know?" Dimitri pressed, "The only people who were there at the time were Celeste, that old man who took the body and me. Unless you already knew about the murder beforehand, and this throws suspicion on you, Inspector."

"How dare you accuse me!" Chelmey spluttered.

"No, Inspector, how dare you accuse us! You have no grounds on which to go from. I understand that it does look suspicious that we are the only new people in town, but were you here before this morning, sir?" asked Dimitri.

Chelmey frowned; "I'm from Scotland Yard, it's my job to go where there have been murders."

"And if you witnessed Ramon's murder then why didn't you help chase the body snatcher with us? It seems awfully like you came back here to lay a trapped," Dimitri went on.

As Chelmey paused to think of a come-back, Dimitri felt the room grow cold again. But this time, instead of hearing a voice talking to him, it felt like there were two voices talking to each other. He heard a higher voice, like that of a child, say that it had made it to that Bruno guy and that Ramon had been fixed. Then he heard the voice he'd become more familiar with congratulate the first, before saying something was directed to him. A very urgent demand to open the door.

Cutting through the crowd, Dimitri made to do what he was told.

"Look, the villain tries to escape!" announced Chelmey.

But no one was listening to him; they were all looking at the person who stood on the other side of the door that Dimitri had just opened.

"Ramon…?" gasped Lady Dahlia.

"Yes, my lady, sorry that I'm rather late. Had a few problems down with the boat, but they've been fixed now," replied Ramon.

"They're not the only thing that has been fixed…" muttered Dimitri.

"What is the meaning of this!" shrieked Lady Dahlia, "I thought Ramon had been murdered!"

Although he couldn't quite explain what had happened, Dimitri decided to plunge ahead, "The man who took Ramon-"

He felt colder than he ever had done before. Almost as if he was freezing up. He'd very nearly made a mistake and was about to be stopped.

"Please don't tell me you're about to accuse Bruno of being a robot," came the cold voice, and very definitely only Dimitri could hear it, "This has been a very long day. My patience are running thin, I am ashamed to admit. We've worked hard to help you get Ramon back much sooner than you should have done and we can't mess it up at this crucial moment. So please, Dimitri, just say what I say."

"…Fixed him. The man who took Ramon repaired him," said Dimitri, saying exactly what the voice told him.

"You can't repair the dead," muttered Chelmey.

"Ramon wasn't dead and neither is Simon for that matter. Because… wait, what? Um, s-sorry. I mean because they're both robots," Dimitri concluded.

There was silence, and then Chelmey broke out into laughter.

"Robots! These good people are not robots, you barmy man," Chelmey barked, "What evidence do you have?"

"All the evidence I need," assured Dimitri, "This cog was found next to Simon's body and I found another one in the last place the body-snatcher was seen," he broke away from the mysterious voice to continue this explanation on his own, "At first Celeste and I assumed that the man who kidnapped them was a robot, but we were wrong. In truth it is the people here who are. I'm sorry, Lady Dahlia, but possibly everyone around you isn't real, though I can't say that I know the details about it. And as for who the 'murderer' in this situation is, well I'd have to say that it's you, Inspector Chelmey!"

"These are lies! All of it is lies!" gasped Chelmey, "This is just… crazy talk! What sort of evidence do you have?"

"I can tell you what I know about Inspector Chelmey," started Dimitri, not adding that he was getting all of this information from an inhuman source, "And that is that he's currently away dealing with another case, according to this morning's newspaper. But I suppose the Times doesn't make it to this little village, how very convenient for you. And judging from your unfounded hatred for me, along with the knowledge of mechanics you must have in order to take these robots apart, there's only one person who you could be. And I think Celeste will be able to work out who you are too."

Taking her cue, Claire suddenly went wide-eyed as she realised exactly who 'Inspector Chelmey' really was.

"It can't be…" she whispered, "After all these years… Paul, is that really you?"

"So you remember me! How it hurts very much, 'Celeste'. Or should I call you Claire?" snarled the Inspector, pulling off his mask to reveal a man with unusually pointed black hair beneath it, "But I'm not going by that name anymore, it's Don Paolo now!"

Paul. Or Don Paolo, apparently. Dimitri vaguely remembered him from the university. He had been a student of mechanics, a bit eccentric and harbouring an unrequited attraction to Claire, just like Dimitri was. The only people who didn't realise about Pa- …Don Paolo's crush were Layton and Claire themselves.

"What are you doing here?" Dimitri shouted over, scared that Don Paolo was going to blow their cover.

"Well, Mr. Allen, I was searching for the Golden Apple, but after finding out that Claire is still alive after all these years I'd say that's much more valuable," laughed Don Paolo.

Dimitri stepped in front of Claire, still glaring.

"I don't understand, Paul…" Claire mumbled.

"Oh, how you tug on the strings of my heart! Very well, I'll let you go this time, but now that I know you're still alive you will not see the last of Don Paolo!" shrieked the man.

Then he did something no one was expecting. He rushed towards a window and dived right out of it. Dimitri dashed over to make sure he was all right, but the man had already disappeared. That guy had always been slippery…

Obliviously, Lady Dahlia commented, "Am I to understand that he is not a police officer?"

"No, my lady," Claire confirmed, "he's a… a… I guess you could call him a scientist, of sorts. And I'm sorry that he fooled you. And damaged your robots. Um, I'm still a bit confusion about that part myself."

She looked over to Dimitri for answers. He silently panicked. The part about the robots had been all his mysterious informant's idea, but it did seem to make sense…

"There's a man called Bruno, I think he knows all of the answers," Dimitri managed, picking out the name that he'd heard earlier.

"Bruno? He lives in that quaint little tower," Lady Dahlia informed.

Quaint? Little? Neither of those were words that Dimitri would have used to describe the looming monstrosity that dominated the middle of the village. The only reason he hadn't paid too much attention to it before now was because his mind had been on other things since they arrived.

"Are we allowed to go there?" Claire asked, "It seemed blocked off when we tried searching for the Golden Apple there."

"Nonsense! I am the lady of this village and if I say you are to go somewhere then away you shall go," huffed Lady Dahlia, "I'll even come with you if that's what it takes."

"What about the others?" Claire replied.

"They can stay here," said Lady Dahlia, heading from the room and beckoning them to follow, "Between you and me I'm not sure how much I should trust them giving that there's a chance they might be robots."

Dimitri could have sworn he heard the ghostly voice comment on that, but didn't quite catch what it said.

It didn't take long for the three of them to make it to the tower, the lady of the land marching ahead. But once they had arrived it didn't seem that they were permitted to go any further.

"Bruno, open up this instant!" she called up, "I am the late baron's wife and I demand that you let us in!"

"Can't do that, m'lady," the famed Bruno called down from a window that was further up, "Sorry to say, but you don't have any power until you complete the will and find the Golden Apple."

"This is not a joke! This man here seems to believe that the people of St. Mystere are robots," Lady Dahlia insisted.

"He does, does he?"

Suddenly, Dimitri could feel Bruno's stare upon him. He was definitely the same man who kidnapped Ramon earlier.

"Um, it's just a theory sir," Dimitri shouted up, "But you took that man Ramon away dead and then he came back alive. There are little cogs everywhere, so perhaps… these robots are falling apart."

"It's not easy to run 'em all, you know!" Bruno called, "I have to fix the lot by myself and it doesn't make things easier when strange voices from beyond tell me that I need to do it faster! Falling apart, he says. Hah!"

"Strange voices…"

So this man had heard them too, just like Dimitri had thought he heard the voices talking about earlier. So it seemed they'd rushed him to fix Ramon in order for Dimitri to have some evidence to give the fake Chelmey. But why was it so important to them?

"Are you saying he's right about them being robots?" Lady Dahlia yelled.

Bruno growled, "You're the most work of all, dear lady. And to think that the Baron thought you were a good idea."

There was a shrill gasp from Lady Dahlia; "I… I'm a robot too?"

"Of course you are! But you could never quite replace his real wife in that little girl's eyes," Bruno answered.

"It's okay…" Claire tried to soothe, patting Lady Dahlia's back.

"What little girl?" Dimitri said to Bruno.

"If you're so smart, why don't you come up here and find out?" challenged Bruno, withdrawing his head from the window.

Dimitri walked over to the door, there seemed to be some sort of puzzle on the lock… The air around him grew cold, but this time he almost swore that he could detect something of a grin about it.

"Let me handle these," the voice told him.

With his ghostly guide, Dimitri managed to solve each of the puzzles on the doors that led them up the towers. He dared not look back at Claire, who was quite impressed by this sudden skill, because he knew that in truth it wasn't him finding the answers. But informant or otherwise, eventually they made it to the top of the tower.

There was the last thing that they had been expecting waiting to greet them – a little cottage hidden away from the world.

"Hello?" Claire whispered, pushing the door open.

"Who are you?"

There, sat on a chair, was a small girl in an orange dress. She looked like the perfect fairytale character to find in this bizarrely placed cottage.

"My name is Celeste, this is Alan and the Lady Dahlia," introduced Claire, as they all walked through.

"I know who she is," huffed the girl, glaring at Lady Dahlia.

"Flora! So this is where you've been," cried the lady, dashing forward.

The girl called Flora backed up, replying, "I like it here with Bruno, he's not like everyone else."

"She has a rough time," Bruno sighed, appearing from behind the door, "Her father created all of these contraptions to keep her company once he'd past away, but poor Flora has grown ever weary of the robots and reclusive as time has gone on. She wants nothing more than to be with real people."

"You poor thing," Claire whispered, heading over to Flora. Then to Bruno, she said, "Why can't she be with other people?"

"Who could look after her?" Bruno said, shrugging, "She has no family left."

"I'll be her family," Claire said firmly.

"You will?" Dimitri gaped; shocked that she'd just take in a child like that without consulting him.

"Have a heart; she has no one else…" Claire said, hugging Flora, who was blinking up at her uncertainly.

Aside from Flora's confusion, watching the two hugging like this, Dimitri had to admit that they looked like the perfect picture of a family. They could have past for mother and daughter. Then the traitorous voice in Dimitri's head that was fully his own, nothing to do with any ghosts, said that if it hadn't been for him Claire might have been a loving mother by now, to a beautiful child of her and Layton's…

"…F-fine, th-that would be a good idea," he concluded, "She can stay with us, if that's what she wants."

"Well, Flora?" Claire prompted, smiling down at the little girl who she knew no more about than her name.

Flora's face broke into a smile and she started to cry.

"I… I'd love that!" she said, hugging tightly onto Claire and continuing to cry cheerful tears.

"All's well that ends well," sighed Bruno, throwing his hands in the air.

"But we still haven't solved the mystery of the Golden Apple," muttered Lady Dahlia.

"I think we have, just look a little closer," Dimitri said, staring at a birthmark that had appeared on Flora's neck as she cried. It resembled an apple. The clue couldn't be clearer if it tried. "The Golden Apple wasn't a treasure in the physical sense; it was Baron Reinhold's beloved daughter…"

"So we've just adopted the treasure," Claire joked.

"There's more too it than that." Dimitri looked around, but when no one responded he realised it was the other voice who had said it. "But you can worry about that once you're outside, as our dear friend Paul has come for a second helping…"

"Look out!"

Dimitri dashed, knocking Claire and Flora out of the way as something came smashing through the window. The metallic object was then retracted, revealing an odd flying machine through the hole it had left.

"Allen! I've come for Claire!" Don Paolo screeched from inside of it.

Though Dimitri made to reply, it was Claire who barged past him and stood in front of the hole, glaring at their opponent.

"How can you say that, Paul? Do you think I'm some sort of object who you can claim just like that?" she yelled, "I'm… I'm shocked! To think that I used to respect you back in the university!"

Even Don Paolo's flying machine seemed to be recoiling slightly in fear from her.

"Um… I'm, um, sorry…" he stuttered, hardly believing he was saying this, "If there's anything I could do to make it up to you for my, eh, behaviour…"

"You can leave this place in peace!" Claire told him.

"Very well… maybe I'll see you around sometime, so we can… catch up…" whimpered Don Paolo, twiddling his fingers.

"We'll see," Claire concluded, before turning back to the others, "That's that sorted then. Shall we get ready to go, Flora?"

"All right, Miss… um, is it Celeste or Claire?" Flora mumbled.

"Whichever you prefer," answered Claire, holding out her hand to the girl.

With Don Paolo left, tail between his legs, the rest of the evening was spent getting Flora ready to leave her village and start life with her new family. There were tears from Flora's end and an odd sense of awkwardness between her and Lady Dahlia, who Bruno informed the two guests had been designed to look like Baron Reinhold's former wife in an attempt to make Flora happy. But by the time morning came around, the girl was ready to go.

"Say goodbye to everyone, Flora," Claire said, as they got into the car.

Waving back, Flora said, almost sadly, "Goodbye, little village…"

"You'll like it where we live," Claire went on, as Dimitri started the engine, "It's a bit quiet but there are real people there for you to talk to."

Speaking of quiet, Dimitri hadn't heard any of his mysterious voices since last night…

"I don't get it, Mr. Layton," Clive said, looking up at his fellow ghost as the car headed off, "Why didn't you tell them about the treasure under the manor?"

Layton chuckled in his polite way; "Well, Clive, I suppose with everything else that happened it wasn't important for them to know."

"I think you were just tired of having to tell things to that Dimitri guy," Clive observed.

Layton just replied, "I'll probably have to talk to him a lot more as time goes on, there's another person who needs our help…"

He closed his eyes to focus on what came next – a strange man in a castle, a girl searching for her family and foremost of all, an old mentor of his called Dr. Schrader.


	6. Chapter 6

Notes – The second chapter I was really nervous about. This one is the rewrite of the second game. I tried to keep it as brief and relevant to this story as I could, so hopefully it'll read okay.

* * *

><p>It took many months for Flora to adjust to living in her new home. During that time, finding it hard to constantly keep up with their fake identities, Alan and Celeste were revealed to her as being truly called Dimitri and Claire. But out of some kind of luck she never questioned about the names and swore to refer to them by the fake ones when they were in public together.<p>

What none of them were expecting was the letter that was sent to their home a few months down the line.

"It's addressed to Claire," Flora told Dimitri.

"I don't see what's wrong with that," Dimitri replied, confused.

"No, I mean that it's addressed to Claire as in it's not addressed to Celeste. It has Claire's name on the front," clarified Flora.

"What? That can't be…" Dimitri mumbled, taking hold of the letter but not daring to open it, "Maybe Don Paolo has tracked us down to where we live."

"It's nothing quite that sinister," Claire said, from where she'd appeared in the doorway, "I'm sorry Dimitri, I know that you told us never to give out our real names to anyone, but I had to tell him…"

"Had to tell who?" Dimitri asked, handing the letter over to her.

Claire answered, "Dr. Schrader. I'm not sure if you knew him, but he was Hershel's mentor before he graduated and… it felt a shame not to keep in contact with him."

"Very well," said Dimitri, trying not to worry himself too much over who could have found a letter with Claire's real name on while it was travelling through the post.

As they watched, Claire opened the letter and skim-read over it.

"He appears to have been researching something called the Elysian Box. Sounds like he's doing very well for himself," Claire cheerfully commented.

And that was when Dimitri felt it. For the first time since they'd come back from St. Mystere. The room was filled with an icy chill that only he seemed able to feel. Then came the voice.

"You need to go visit Dr. Schrader."

He almost asked it why, but then remembered that Claire and Flora were in the room. He didn't want to look crazy in front of them.

"Claire? How long as it been since you last saw Dr. Schrader?" Dimitri asked.

Something inside just felt like it was best to listen to this voice. Even if he knew nothing about it.

She rose an eyebrow, answering, "I haven't seen him since before the explosion. Don't worry; I'm not silly enough to go wandering back into London just like that."

"It's not that, I just thought that you might like to see him," Dimitri replied.

"I'd like to, but I know it's not going to happen," said Claire.

"Maybe it could," he offered, "It's been so long that we both look very different now. I'm sure we could make a brief trip to London without being recognised."

"You think so?" Claire blinked; she wasn't used to Dimitri disregarding caution so much.

"We're not going to dance on Bill's doorstep, are we?" reasoned Dimitri.

"Do you two not like the Prime Minister?" Flora cut in.

The looked at each other. That was one very big question to answer…

Choosing to ignore it, Dimitri went on, "It'd be good for Flora to see more of the world too. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Flora?"

"Oh yes, very much so," Flora cooed, clasping her hands together. She didn't understand why the two of them were so secretive about how they went about but she did understand a trip to the big city when it was offered to her.

"It's settled then, we'll leave tomorrow," Dimitri concluded.

"This is unlike you," Claire laughed, "But I can't say that I mind it."

Dimitri tried to stop his cheeks from colouring, stammering, "W-we better all go get ready then."

He then headed from the room, putting as much distance from himself and the source of his embarrassment as he could. The voice had seemed so firm about this. Perhaps he was going mad for him to even be hearing voices at all, let alone listening to them, but something about it felt… right. As if he could trust this mysterious person entirely.

By the next morning the three of them were in the car and headed for London. The first time two of them had been back there since the day after the explosion and the first time one of them had been there at all. There were nerves on Dimitri and Claire's end to say the least. On the other hand Flora was very much looking forward to seeing how different London life was to being in the country.

"Did you tell him we were coming?" Dimitri asked, in an attempt to start conversation.

"No, I thought it'd be a nice surprise," replied Claire, "He did leave me instructions on how to get to his house if I ever did decide to visit though. Would you believe that he left them in the form of a puzzle?"

"By this point, I'd almost expect that," Dimitri admitted, smiling. Layton had to have got his love of puzzles from somewhere.

"If it puts you at ease, I've already solved this one," Claire went on, "I can direct you to the exactly building that he lives in."

Taking her word for it, Dimitri let Claire lead them to the apartment Dr. Schrader currently called home. The three of them knocking on the door and waiting for a few moments. There came no answer.

"Perhaps he's out," Flora suggested.

"He's not out."

The whispered told him that.

"Move aside," Dimitri told them, taking a few steps back then ramping into the door once the other two had moved away. It crashed open under his weight. Inside was a sight that Dimitri should have been becoming accustomed to by now but still found extremely terrifying.

A dead body.

The body of Dr. Andrew Schrader.

"You might not want to look-"

It was already too late; Claire had rushed over and crouched down by the unfortunate man's side.

"Poor Dr. Schrader… I never thought that it would happen…" she sobbed.

"That what would happen?" Dimitri asked, heading over to stand with her.

Looking up at him, Claire confirmed, "He said that the Elysian Box he was researching had a curse. Th-that is was supposed to kill those who opened it. But Dr. Schrader never believed in that sort of thing…"

Never did I, before bodiless voices started telling me what to do, Dimitri thought to himself.

"Poor Doctor…" Flora sobbed.

"Clear aside, civilians," called a stern voice from the door.

Both Dimitri and Claire almost jumped out of their skins when they first saw who it belonged to. Inspector Chelmey. The real deal. Not just Don Paolo in a costume. Clearly he didn't recognise them, so he had to be the real thing.

They all moved out of the way, allowing him to have a closer inspection of the body. A short assistant following Chelmey was staring at them thoughtfully. He might well have seen both Dimitri and Claire's faces on some sort of wanted list before and was trying to place them. Silently, they prayed that his memory would fail him.

"What have you found, Inspector?" the short man asked, dismissing any thoughts of where he knew them from.

"Not very much, Barton, but I think we should treat any one of these people as suspects," Chelmey answered, looking at the three of them.

Well, this was a rather odd sense of déjà vu…

"Inspector, I think you're jumping to conclusions here," Dimitri began.

"Are you trying to tell me how to do my job? If not any of you then who could the suspect be?" Chelmey demanded.

Dimitri realised that he was actually pausing, waiting for the cold wave to give him the answer.

"I don't think you should tell him if he's just going to rely on you for the answers like that," came the distinct voice of a young boy, one of the two whisperers that only Dimitri could hear.

"Now, now, that would be rather mean. And besides, they need to get away from suspicion so they don't run the risk of being connected to the incident all those years ago," the more reasonable voice replied to the boy. Just as Dimitri was about to mouth the word 'please', his phantom informant said, "The window, Dimitri, there's something there that will tell you the truth."

"Well then?" Chelmey pressed, "I don't have all day."

"Look through the window," Dimitri echoed.

Grunting, Chelmey shuffled over to the have a look, and then exclaimed, "Great Scots! Someone's used a trail of curtain-line to escape to the next building! Have you ever heard of anything like it in this day and age, Barton? Barton! What are you doing just standing there? After them!"

"Yes sir!" gulped Barton.

The trio thought they were out of the woods, but then Chelmey rounded on them, barking, "And as for you three, I want you out of my crime scene this instant. Off with you!"

He ushered them out of the door.

"How very rude!" Flora huffed, spitting her tongue out at the closed door.

"He almost cost us a very important clue," Claire agreed.

"Almost?" Dimitri enquired.

"I'm not just here to stand around, you know," Claire teased, "Thanks to your distraction I managed to take this from Dr. Schrader's hand when the Inspector was looking out of the window."

She held out a fancy-looking ticket for a train line called the Molentary Express.

"That's evidence. Don't you think we should hand it over to Chelmey?" Dimitri said, looking at it.

"Where's your sense of adventure? Besides, you didn't show the other Chelmey the cog you found next to that Simon guy's body," Claire reminded him.

"I guess not. So what do you suppose we do next?"

"Isn't it obvious? We take a trip on the Molentary Express."

The three of them made their way to the station that the train was leaving from later that day. None of them knew exactly how much of a big deal the Molentary Express was until they actually got there. This trip was to be the train's debut, its proud owner, Mr. Beluga, waiting to send his beloved locomotive out into the world. Their ticket, along with two more that they'd purchased, was marked for this grand event, but none of them had been able to find the destination written anywhere on it.

That didn't seem to matter too much to the two girls, who were really more interested in adventure than where exactly they were going. Once it had left the platform, they headed up and down the train, talking to the unusual passengers and helping them with the puzzles they all seemed to have on their minds.

By the time they'd reached their first destination, a small village called Dropstone, Dimitri found that he'd come over quite tired. When the girls couldn't answer a puzzle they looked to him, and when he couldn't answer a puzzle he looked to his ghostly guide. It had even reached the point where the train had broken down and the voice had guided Dimitri through how to fix it. This was all getting rather out of hand.

So when Claire and Flora set out to explore Dropstone during a break in the train's schedule, Dimitri opted to stay on the carriage to rest. Perhaps this way he'd catch a break from voices from beyond.

No such luck.

"Dimitri?"

"Yes?"

Sitting alone with his eyes shut, Dimitri found he felt less conscious about talking out loud to whoever this was.

"Aren't you scared?" the younger one said.

"You two have been directing two of the most unusual days of my life, I think I'm past being scared," he replied.

"That's good news, it will make this considerably easier," answered the older one, "But you might be quite alarmed by what I'm going to tell you."

"Try me," Dimitri challenged.

"I'm Hershel Layton."

Dimitri's eyes snapped open.

No… just no. It couldn't be! Not after all of these years!

"H-hershel…?"

"Yes, the very same. I had as much of a hard time believing it as you probably are to begin with, since I was never… well, religious. But I've been sent back to this world to complete some tasks before I can pass on," Layton said.

Dimitri stared into space, whimpering, "…But why me…? Why not Claire…?"

"I tried to talk to Claire, I'll admit, but she cannot hear me. Few people can. Yourself and that Bruno fellow from St. Mystere being among them. So, as much as I apologise for using you like this, you're the one who has to help be perform these tasks," Layton went on.

"I'll do it," Dimitri whispered, "Well, I suppose I already have been anyway, but I'll do it now that I know it's you. I owe you… for what happened."

"What do you mean?" Layton asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"I killed you!" Dimitri choked.

There was a pause.

"No, you didn't. That was very definitely Bill Hawks," Layton told him, sternly.

As he said that, Layton felt Clive glare at him. Eyes silently asking if he knew more about who caused the explosion than he'd let on. But Layton could deal with Clive later.

"If I hadn't held Claire up…"

"Then it could very well have been her dead instead of me and neither of us want that," Layton answered, "You should stop blaming yourself for everything that happened. I certainly don't blame you. Now, I think I can hear your travelling partners returning, so we don't have anymore time. Just know that I'll be around if you need me. Oh, and the boy with me is called Clive, by the way, just if you were curious."

"All right," Dimitri whispered, as the door was pulled open and the ghosts fell silent. The two girls ran in, each looking equally cheerful.

"We had a great time in Dropstone," Flora chimed.

"It was very fun, Hershel would have loved it," Claire sighed dreamily, "Flora and I lost each other for a while, but we got back together in one piece. And you should have seen this girl who just got on the train – the daughter of the mayor. Her name's Katia, I think, and she was very pretty."

"That's nice," said Dimitri, only half taking in what she was saying amidst reflecting on what he'd just heard from the cold voice- …Layton. What he'd just heard from Layton.

All these tasks were to help him move on in the afterlife, he guessed. Presumably, when they'd gone to that curious village it had been because Layton was required to help set Flora free from her confined life. Even though he wasn't sure what the connection between Layton and Flora might have been. Maybe she was someone he might have met if he hadn't… if he hadn't died.

Meaning that today was also going to involve helping someone in a big way. Dr. Schrader? No, it was already too late for him. Maybe it was someone who they just hadn't met yet, like how they didn't come across Flora up until they were inside the tower. As much as he'd grown used to her being around, however, Dimitri really hoped this task wouldn't end in him receiving another adopted child…

"I'm sleepy…" Flora yawned.

"It has been a busy morning… Perhaps a nap wouldn't hurt…" Claire agreed, head slipping down as she fell into a deep sleep herself.

This didn't make any sense; they had been bubbly a few moments ago but were now unable to keep their eyes open. They weren't the only ones, however, as Dimitri found himself joining them in their sudden slumber.

By the time they all came around again it was dark. Not only that, the train had come to a complete halt. Getting up, Dimitri ran to the nearest door to see what was going on, with the others close behind.

There were lights everywhere. This new town looked quite vibrant in a creepy sort of way, but there was definitely something very off about it.

"This wasn't on the route…" Flora whimpered.

"Makes sense, I suppose," Dimitri mused, "A ticket with no destination written on it leading to a town that apparently doesn't exist. This is our stop."

"Dimitri?" Claire called, as they were getting off, "You might want to come have a look at this."

There was a photo of the town on the station. It was a rather nice image and seemingly harmless, until you saw that it was dated fifty years ago.

"Are we supposed to believe that this place hasn't changed in fifty years?" said Dimitri.

"Perhaps the date is just wrong." Claire shrugged.

"We'll see," Dimitri hummed.

Before they could think any further on that, however, they heard a voice from someone else getting off the train.

"Oi, you two!" Inspector Chelmey called, marching towards them, "You're the guys from the room this morning. What are you doing here?"

"The train ride was our next order of business after visiting Dr. Schrader," Dimitri said, thinking on his feet, "We thought that it might help take our minds off the tragedy that happened this morning."

"That's really weird behaviour," Chelmey commented, "But no matter, I just wanted to let you know, so you don't go poking your noses in, that we found the man who murdered Schrader and stole the Elysian Box."

"That's wonderful news, Inspector," Claire replied, although none of them had been informed of the box's theft at all.

"Did you get it back?" Flora asked, walking over from where she'd been looking around the town, "It'd like to see the cute goat symbol on the front again."

"Unfortunately, no," Chelmey grumbled.

A man was being dragged off the train. They recognised him as being Sammy Thunder, the rather eccentric conductor who had spoken to them a bit during the journey, the man was all hair and rock 'n' roll.

"Take it easy, Officer! It wasn't me!" Sammy protested as he was held still.

"Or it had better not be my nephew at any rate," growled the stout figure of Mr. Beluga, the train's owner, who followed out behind him.

"Sorry, Mr. Beluga sir, but there's really no one else it could be," Chelmey proclaimed, "We followed the trail to your train and out of everyone on it your nephew has the most ties to the Herzen family, save for yourself."

"Herzen family?" Claire echoed.

"It wasn't him, was it?" Dimitri whispered, hoping that Layton was around to guide him.

"The clue has already been dropped," Layton replied, "But if you need another one, I will remind you that none of you have actually seen the Elysian Box before."

No… they hadn't.

"With all due respects, I think that you're wrong, Inspector," Dimitri said.

"Second time today you've doubted my deductions. Let's have it then, genius," spat Chelmey.

Taking a deep breath, Dimitri stated, "Although I can't say when or why this happened I can tell you that none of us know what the Elysian Box looks like."

"Well, Scotland Yard did obtain a damaged photo of it, but the middle has been damaged…" agreed Chelmey.

"That's true, so none of us should know what the image on the box looks like. However, Flora here made a point of saying that she thought it had a cute goat mark on the front of it. Am I wrong in saying that your photo doesn't show a goat at all?" queried Dimitri.

"What's this? Are you going to accuse one of your own?" Chelmey muttered, which indirectly answered the question about the photo.

Flora was laughing quietly to herself. But something was very wrong about it. The laugh came out at a low hum, much lower than Flora's voice should be able to reach.

"Well done, Allen, you figured me out," she cackled, "After I went to all the trouble of setting this up as well. Do you realise how long it took me to find letters addressed to Claire. It wasn't easy to set up the trap, to deal with Dr. Schrader and steal the box."

"I don't understand, Flora," Claire mumbled.

Turning on her, Flora growled, "You always hurt me the most, Claire!"

"Claire…?" Barton muttered, frowning to himself in thought.

"You never recognise me even when I'm standing right in front of you!" Flora snapped.

Then she pulled off her mask to reveal a sight that horrified them all. That face did not belong to Flora at all, but was that of the moustached Don Paolo. He then ripped off the rest of the dress, thankfully having his own outfit on underneath it.

"Paul!" Claire screamed, "What have you done with Flora?"

"Oh, don't worry. That little brat is sleeping with the cows back in Dropstone from when I made the switch," Don Paolo sneered, "But it's always the same with you. You always want to talk about someone else. After all of the lengths I went to just to be near you!"

"While… dressing like her adopted daughter," added Dimitri, who was more than a little disturbed by this fact.

"You always have to have the last word!" shrieked Don Paolo, "But not this time! This time I show Claire my true feelings!"

"Your true feelings? You mean… you're attracted to me, Paul?" Claire asked, unsure whether to be flattered or scared.

"Well… I might, eh, maybe a little… yes," Don Paolo mumbled, cheeks colouring behind his moustache.

Walking over, Claire put her hand on his shoulder and said, "That's very sweet of you, really it is. I'm amazed that you'd go to such lengths. But… I'm just not interested in you like that. Hershel is the only man for me."

It was hard to be sure who was more hurt by this between Don Paolo and Dimitri, but Don Paolo was the one who spoke first.

"Oh… well I'm glad you were honest, I suppose… Since it's you I won't try to kidnap you and force you to be my wife…" he muttered.

"Thank you, I'm glad that you're being considerate," Claire agreed, "Now if you're not going to use it, could you give us back the Elysian Box?"

"O-of course! I have it right here," Don Paolo answered, taking out the fabled box and passing it over to Claire, "I might see you around…?"

"We'll see. Take care, Paul," Claire chimed, smiling sweetly as the rejected Don Paolo retreated back the way he came.

As he walked past Dimitri, Don Paolo did hissed, "You should watch out for that one, women are sneaky."

Then he was gone.

And in that moment, looking at Claire triumphantly clutching the prize, Dimitri was almost inclined to agree with him.

"I'll take that!"

Everyone was drawn back to reality by the tiny figure of Mr. Beluga jumping up to snatch the Elysian Box from Claire.

"What are you doing?" she shot.

"A precious Herzen heirloom like this should belong to me," Beluga told her, stroking the box.

Looking awkward, Chelmey confirmed, "Mr. Beluga is a descendant of the Herzen's family. Technically that box belongs to him."

"Yes, but he has no claim to that name," said a young lady with striking purple hair, coming over to their little group. Dimitri reasoned that she must be the Katia who Claire had mentioned earlier, but honestly she was just the next in a long line of unfamiliar faces for him today. The alleged Katia went on, "Mr. Beluga ran off from this place and from his family years ago. He has about as much right to the box as I do."

"And who might you be?" Beluga questioned, making sure he had tight hold of the box.

"Katia Anderson. The granddaughter of Sophia," the girl told him.

Whoever Sophia was she seemed to have some effect on Beluga, whose eyes widened in shock. He let go of the box, but Dimitri was quick on his feet and snatched it up before it hit the floor.

"It can't be…"

"I think that this man should keep the box for now," Katia said, pointing at Dimitri, "He's shown that he has a good intellect by figuring this all out and since he's not involved it would be safer with him. Unless the inspector has any objections."

"By all means, let him have it," sighed Chelmey, who was quite through with the prospect of arguing with women after seeing Claire talk down Don Paolo, "Nothing else to see here, move along."

He ushered away the protesting Beluga and his confused nephew Sammy, leaving Katia alone with Dimitri and Claire.

"Thank you," Katia said, "I was so nervous…"

"You did very well," Claire assured her, walking over.

"I hope so. None of this is what I had in mind when I set out to find my grandfather," Katia admitted, smiling at her.

"Your grandfather?" Dimitri enquired.

"Yes, he lives here, you see, in Folsense," Katia answered, "But I've never seen him before… So I came here to try and find him."

"Do you have any idea where he lives?" said Claire.

Katia looked up at the far end of the town, where a sinister castle loomed over them; "I believe he lives there. Since I woke up a while before anyone else I wandered around to search for information, but none of the locals will go there. They're all too scared of the absurd rumours of a vampire and the toxic gas that the old mines down that way leak out."

"That's all very well," Dimitri commented, "But… and forgive me for asking, why are you telling this to two complete strangers?"

"Oh, well it sounds mad when I say it out loud," Katia said, shuffling her feet, "You see… a voice told me to. It came over very cold and then I could hear a child telling me that it was very important I got back here to fill you in on what was going on, but there were no children around at the time. …You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"N-no," Claire said, though her expression suggested that she was considering it, "Whatever happened I'm glad that you came back to help us. Mr. Beluga probably would have got away with the box otherwise. And to return the favour we'll escort you to the castle and help you find your grandfather."

"Um, what about Flora?" Dimitri cut in.

"She'll be fine for a while," said Claire, but her voice was echoed by that of Layton. Clearly if the ghosts thought that Flora was in no immediate danger there was no point in arguing with them.

"Very well, let's get going," Dimitri concluded.

As they walked, Claire and Katia gossiped with each other, giggling a little as Claire relayed the story of what happened with Don Paolo. Part of Dimitri felt very self-conscious, seeing that he had also confessed to having feelings for Claire so long ago. She had reacted very differently to his confession, however. He was probably just worrying too much.

Without any of that being brought up, they made it to Herzen Castle. It was icy at this time of year, so it took many attempts to get over the frozen lake, but eventually they made it to the door to be greeted by a rather confused looking butler.

"We don't get too many guests these days," the butler told them, "I'm sure the master will be thrilled."

"I am indeed, very pleased," said an attractive-looking blonde man who had walked over to the door to join the man, "Greetings, my dear travellers. I am Anton and this is my butler, Nigel. You have come at a very special time indeed; we are in the middle of a ball."

He stepped aside to let them through. To their surprise, once out of the hallway and into the ballroom they could see that what Anton claimed was true – the room was filled with extravagant guests, all in the middle of a waltz. It was… bizarre. There had been not much sound from outside and none of the people they had past on the way here mentioned any parties, and yet here were all these people, clearly in the middle of a celebration.

"Oh my…" Katia gasped, though it seemed as if she was more shocked by Anton himself than the party.

"It is you who I am most interested in dancing with, my lady," Anton said, taking Katia's hand. Before she had a chance to respond, he had whisked her away into the middle of the dance floor.

Dimitri backed up a little, and then whispered, "Hershel, do you have any ideas about this? Is it all an illusion of some sort?"

"If you really need me to tell you what to do when you're standing on the edge of a dance floor with a lady then you're beyond my help," Layton commented innocently and Dimitri could almost picture him smirking.

"But she's your… I'm…" Dimitri stammered.

"Is something the matter?" Claire asked, looking back at him.

"N-nothing," he gulped, looking up at her, "Would you… c-care to, um, care to dance…?"

She laughed, regarding him with disbelief. She was going to reject him, he knew it, and it was stupid of him to even ask-

"Of course."

"What?"

"You wanted to dance, didn't you? Then let's dance," Claire confirmed, taking him out onto the dance floor and starting to follow the example of the other guests.

She'd clearly had more practise at this than he did and he would have been embarrassed to say that she was the one leading them if it wasn't for the fact that he was too elated with her accepting his offer to care about embarrassment at all. They moved around the floor, looking each other in the eyes and trying not to laugh awkwardly. Just for that moment Dimitri felt as if he could forget about Layton and everything that had happened and just enjoy being here with Claire.

"Get off me!"

The moment was broken by Katia's screech. As they looked over they could see her pulling away from Anton.

"I don't understand, Sophia, I thought you'd come back for me," Anton reasoned, trying to tug her back, "Isn't this the perfect reunion that you wanted?"

"I'm not Sophia!" Katia screamed, darting over to hide behind Dimitri and Claire.

The formerly pleasant face of Anton turned sour with anger. He glared at Dimitri savagely.

"So that's how it is. You've come back here with your new man to flaunt it under my nose," he spat, "Well let's see how he holds up when I cut him into ribbons!"

He pulled a sword out from a suit of armour on the edge of the room, charging towards Dimitri with alarming speed. The three of them only just managed to scatter to different sides of the room as the 'guests' from the party disappeared into the smoke that they truly were.

"What should I do?" Dimitri called out in panic.

"There's another suit of armour holding a sword," Layton said.

Backing up from Anton, who was coming in for a second attack, Dimitri said, "I've never used a sword before…"

"No, and an amateur endangers both himself and others," agreed Layton, "I'll have to get Katia to talk reason into him, please try to keep him distracted."

Before Dimitri could even comment on that being easy for him to say, the cold feeling had disappeared and presumably Layton had gone to talk to Katia. For a short while it was all Dimitri could do to keep Anton away from the two girls. He could feel Claire watching him in confused horror.

Just when he felt himself run out of energy and collapse, before Anton's blade could strike him, Katia made her stand.

"Grandfather, stop!" she yelled.

Freezing, Anton growled, "What do you mean 'grandfather'?"

"That's who you are," Katia told him, walking closer; "I'm not Sophia, but her descendant."

"Sophia… Sophia was not with child," Anton argued.

"She was, that's why she left here. It wasn't because she didn't love you… she just knew that it was too dangerous to risk raising a child here," Katia said, close to tears, "She knew you were too stubborn to leave…"

Collapsing to his knees, Anton whispered, "Oh, my sweet Sophia… B-but that doesn't make any sense… Why are you so old, child?"

"The question is more, why are you so young?" reasoned Katia, "It's been fifty years since then."

"The gas from the mines," Claire said, walking over.

"Is someone telling you the answers too?" Katia mumbled.

"No, I just worked it out on my own," Claire answered, raising an eyebrow, "After hearing all this talk about toxic gas from the mines it was easy to find the answer. That's why people avoid this place. And for this man to have been living here for so long without dying he must be heavily under the influence of it. This whole thing is a hallucination."

"So he's…?"

When Dimitri turned back to Anton, before he could even finish that question, instead of the young man who had been sitting there just before there was a shrivelled, white-haired individual who was sobbing into his granddaughter's arms.

"I just wanted her to come back to me…" Anton whimpered.

"And she did," said Katia softly. She motioned for Dimitri to give her the Elysian Box and when he had done, past it across to Anton. "My grandmother left a message in here for you."

There were tears from both of them as Anton read out the heart-felt message that Sophia had left him before she'd past away. Even Claire sniffed a little, settling down next to them.

"I suppose I should give up the ghost and go back to my family…" Anton admitted.

"We'd like that, really we would," Katia agreed.

"I know how hard it must be for you," Claire said, looking over at Anton, "I too had someone I loved very dearly but lost. And though I wait every day I know that he'll never come back. Giving up… is near impossible."

Dimitri's heart shattered for a second time.

So that was it. He thought that they were finally making progress and that Claire was maybe reaching the stage where she could move on, but no. It was still all about Hershel Layton. Why had he expected otherwise?

"Dimitri, is everything all right?" Claire asked, looking over at him.

"Yes. I'd just better go tell Inspector Chelmey what's going on," he muttered, turning to leave before she could say anything else.

He didn't make it far out of the castle before he saw Chelmey and Barton rushing over to him anyway. Judging from their expressions the message was at least a good one.

"There you are, my fellow," Chelmey puffed, a little out of breath, "We have some excellent news! You're not going to believe this, but Dr. Schrader was not dead at all. He had been knocked out by hallucinogenic gas this whole time. Shocking, eh?"

"Perhaps not as much as you might think, Inspector."

It didn't take long to fill them both in about Anton, the mysterious gas and the Elysian Box. By the time he had finished, Claire, Katia and Anton had made it out of the castle. The Herzen family were pulled aside for questioning and, after Claire had been informed about Dr. Schrader, she and Dimitri were allowed to go.

"Katia spoke about hearing voices after you left," Claire started, as they walked away, "I did think she was a bit out of it at first, I confess, but then she said that she thought you were hearing them to."

And there was that moment.

He knew that he could very well tell Claire that he had been hearing these voices and they had led them on this adventure. Most of all, he could tell her that the one giving him guidance was Layton. Her beloved Layton. The man she truly wanted to be here instead of Dimitri.

It was that thought that stopped him.

"I'm not sure what she's talking about," Dimitri mumbled, "Let's go pick up Flora."

"All right…" Claire replied. She wasn't sure what was wrong with him, but decided not to press the matter further.

"Here we are again, watching the two of them leave some strange place," Layton said to Clive, rather glumly, as the other two walked away, "At least that's two lives helped…"

"They seem to be having a bit of a… um, they're not getting on very well," Clive commented.

"I fear for that," agreed Layton.

"Who is the next person you need to save, Mr. Layton?" asked Clive.

Sighing out a breath that didn't exist, Layton answered, "There are a few detours, but the next people I need to save… are Dimitri and Claire."


	7. Chapter 7

Note – Well, this is the chapter that makes everything worth it for me. I worked so hard to bring it to this and we're almost done. Just one more chapter to go.

* * *

><p>Time went on and more mysteries were solved.<p>

That was the shorthand version of it. The longer version was that Dimitri continued to receive messages from the ghosts and travelled to different places to perform tasks for them. These tasks were much smaller than the first two adventures Layton had led them on, but nevertheless were beginning to feel extremely taxing. People were beginning to know the faces of 'Alan and Celeste'. If he had been in his right mind then Dimitri would have been worried that their continued activities might cause them to be traced back to their true identities, but at the moment he was too exhausted to care.

Claire wasn't about to make things any easier on him, either.

"I talked to Katia the other day," she started.

"That's nice," muttered Dimitri.

"She's still sure that you could hear the same voices that she could," Claire went on.

"Well I can't, as I've told you before," he replied.

"I don't want to call you a liar-"

"Then don't."

Claire sighed, continuing, "But life has gone a little… weird lately. I follow you to all of these strange places because I trust you, but you've got to admit that this did all come out of nowhere. It would… make sense if there was someone else giving you advice. I have heard you mumbling to yourself." That last part was added to stop Dimitri from dismissing her so easily.

"What do you want me to say, that I'm hearing voices?" Dimitri asked her.

She knew that she shouldn't, she really did, but to get him to talk Claire fell back on the one excuse that Dimitri always listened to:

"Hershel would have told me what was going on."

This time that was the wrong thing to say.

"Yes, maybe he would have done," Dimitri snapped, glaring at her, "Because Hershel is this perfect god of a man who no one else could ever compare to!"

"N-no, I just meant-"

"I know what you meant! You do that all the time," he growled, "I put everything into caring for you! Took in a daughter because you wanted one, travelled to some castle to sort out someone else's family crisis because you said it would be a good idea. I do everything you tell me to, even though you never bother to see how I feel about these things, because I want you to be happy. But it always, always comes back to Hershel!"

"I love him, what do you expect?" she snapped right back.

He replied, "I expect you to respect me enough to not use him as an excuse to get me to tell you things!"

"Well you aren't going to tell me what's going on otherwise!" Claire retorted.

He walked past her, sounding calmer but no less unhinged as he answered, "I want to protect you, Claire. And always have done. That's why I pulled you away from your house when the police were coming after us and that's why I'm not telling you what's going on now."

"You don't need to, I can look after myself," she murmured.

"Yes, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should just leave you to look after yourself. I'm sure you'll do a good enough job of it," Dimitri concluded.

She could hear his footsteps heading away from her.

"You can't just leave!" she called, trembling, "What about Flora?"

The door shut behind him. For all intents and purposes Flora had been Claire's decision and was now Claire's problem. She screamed out in rage, hoping that he heard it, before storming up to her room. Like an angry child, she threw herself onto the bed and sobbed violently into the pillow.

Though she had been out at school during that conversation, upon returning Flora noticed the lack of Dimitri and that Claire seemed to have shut herself away in her room and decided that it would be best to avoid talking to Claire for now. She managed with some difficulty to make herself something to eat then went to her own room to weather the potential coming storm between her adopted parents.

It was hours later before Claire had cried herself into an uneasy sleep. She'd lost all concept of time but didn't care. All she could think of was how angry she had been at Dimitri, which had eventually dissolved into the fear of how she was going to handle things here without him or even if someone might somehow manage to track her down as being Claire. He had been the one who always worried about that sort of thing… And then those nerves of these worries had eventually sent her off to sleep.

"I need to talk to Claire," Layton informed Clive.

"But she can't hear you," Clive reminded.

"She will be able to now, I'm almost certain of it," he said, "But… I'd like to do this alone, if that's all right with you."

"Very well, good luck, Mr. Layton," Clive said, backing out of the room.

Once the boy was gone, Layton made his way over to the bed where Claire lay, clutching at the blankets in her sleep. He wasn't as sure about this as he would have liked to have been, but gave it a try. Leaning forward, he whispered into her dreams.

"Claire…? It's me, Hershel…"

"Hershel…?" Claire mouthed, drawing him into her dream, "Oh Hershel… I'm so glad… so glad you came…"

"Yes, we have a lot to discuss," he agreed, unsure how he was managing to keep his business-head on while walking towards the dream-like figure of the lady he'd been unable to talk to for all this time.

"I've missed you…" she said, but did not run over to hug him.

He chuckled slightly, "But I've been here all this time."

"You have…?"

"Yes, I've been the one telling Dimitri where to go and what to do," he confessed.

"I knew it…! I knew he was hiding something from me," she muttered, but then a second thought hit her, "But then… why did you talk to him but not to me?"

"Trust me, I did try," Layton promised her, "But there are only certain people who I've been able to talk to and before now you weren't among them."

"Then why now?" Claire pressed.

"I have a theory," Layton informed, "Over looking at the sorts of people I have been able to talk to I believe that those who can contact ghosts can do so because of distress they feel with their lives and those who are at peace with their existence have no need to hear voices from those who don't belong to that world. It sounds vague, I know, but the people who have heard me thus far are Dimitri, Bruno and Katia. In Bruno's case he lived with the constant worry of being a human who has to solely care for a young girl amongst a village of robots. And with Katia she was obviously very worried about the broken state of her family. To test this, I tried talking to her again sometime after she had been reunited with her grandfather but found that I couldn't, because she is happy with her life now."

Trying to take all of this in, Claire replied, "But then… I should have been able to hear you. Because I live with the constant distress of not having you with me anymore…"

Layton looked at her, eyes shining with a sort of sadness that she'd never seen from him before.

"But you aren't, Claire. You are comfortable with your life…" he whispered.

"How could you say that? If you've been watching all this time then you know that I pine for you everyday!" she gasped.

"I know that you do," he agreed, "But… it is only on the surface. I hate to say this, I really do, but under it all you felt comfortable with your life. Perhaps… it wouldn't have been exactly what you wanted, but you were cared for and had a home. It took Dimitri leaving to distress you enough for me to be able to talk to you…"

Claire wiped a tear from her eye; she did not want to be hearing this from him.

"But I love you…" she whispered.

"I know," Layton assured her, "You don't have to stop loving me to be happy without me…"

"I don't want to be without you!" she shouted, "I want you to be back here with me and my daughter and Di- …and… and…"

"Dimitri," Layton finished, "Don't doubt that I would if I could. However, I'm dead, Claire. There is no way I can ever come back to the world of the living. What I want, is to know that you are safe and loved."

"No one loves me like you do…" whimpered Claire.

"Somehow I rather think the man who's done everything for you since the moment I left would disagree," Layton debated.

"That's different, I don't love Dimitri," she replied.

"Do you not?"

There was a moment in which Layton looked at Claire and she stared back across at him. His expression was sad, but controlled. Claire on the other hand, when forced to bluntly confront her feelings, found that she couldn't keep her emotions in check so easily.

She ran over to him, burying her head into his chest and wailing loudly.

"I do, Hershel…! I do love him… But now he's gone and you're gone… and I'm all alone," she cried.

Putting his arms around her, Layton soothed, "It's not too late, there's still time to set everything right…"

Pulling away, Claire looked up at him, wiping her tears and saying, "Tell me what I have to do."

"Are you sure?" he checked.

"You've had Dimitri running around after you all this time and now it's my turn. So tell me how I can fix all of this," Claire confirmed.

He nodded, replying, "That's very noble of you. And I feel it's only fair to let you know that… when this is over you will probably never see me again."

"Seeing you even this once is more than I deserved," Claire answered, reaching out to stroke his face.

"You've always been a very understanding woman, Claire, and I… sorry, we, are lucky that you are," Layton said, "Now you must listen carefully. I need you to go back to the sight of the explosion. There is evidence there that should clear both of your names."

The two talked for a while longer, but now it was strictly about business. There were no sweet nothings or tales of what might have been, just the detailed instructions of what needed to be done. It was vital everything went according to Layton's plans and happened quickly or it might all fall apart.

Once they were finished, Layton awkwardly commented, "You're going to wake up soon."

"I know," Claire answered, "Before I do though, there's something that has been bothering me. You're not wearing your hat, Hershel. And I did buy it especially for you."

"About that," Layton chuckled, "I was rather hoping you could pick it up for me."

"Of course," she said.

Claire reached out to hug him. They held onto one another until the dawn of consciousness began to drag her away. It felt… like a friendly hug. But more than anything, if felt conclusive and right.

It was time for her to move on and fix her life.

Getting out of bed and cleaning herself up, Claire went to fetch her daughter. They had a busy day ahead of themselves, after all.

Far away, in London, Prime Minister Bill Hawks was about to receive some information that could very well be the highlight of his career.

"What is it, Inspector?" Bill growled, hoping that whatever reason Chelmey had for disturbing his peace was worth it.

"You're not going to believe this," Chelmey muttered, "But there's a… well, this guy has handed himself over to us. Says his name is Dimitri Allen. Says that name should mean something to you."

"Dimitri!" Bill launched out of his chair, gasping, "Are you absolutely sure it's him?"

"That's what he's told me," Chelmey answered.

"You should be able to tell, man," spat Bill, "New officers are always shown pictures of him and his accomplice upon entering the force."

"I'm hardly a new officer, Prime Minister," Chelmey replied, a little offended.

Tugging on Chelmey's coat, Barton whispered, "B-but I am, sir. A-and I knew that I recognised the face of that guy and his friend from somewhere."

"Stop babbling and lead me to him," Bill snapped.

"Of course, sir," Chelmey replied.

They took Bill to the cell that Dimitri was being contained in. There was a sense of unease between him and Barton. They wouldn't go as far as to say they knew this man very well, as up until today they had thought his name was Alan Staghngun, but he had helped them with several cases by this point. It felt very wrong that he was being presented to their own Prime Minister as a criminal.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Bill laughed, "And I really do mean dragged. The years have not been kind to you, Dimitri."

"I could well say the same about you…" Dimitri murmured, though his heart was not in it. He stared up at his former colleague through blank eyes.

"Hah! I am the Prime Minister! The ruler of fair England! And what are you now?" grumbled Bill.

"…Through with this game. I'm ready to give myself up, Bill. There's nothing to fight for anymore…" Dimitri answered.

"As happy that I am about you finally confessing to your crimes, part of me wonders why you'd do it after so long. I certainly wasn't anywhere near finding whatever hole you were hiding in," Bill commented.

"…Claire is gone," Dimitri said, "There's no point in me keeping this up without someone to protect."

"Dead? Is that what you mean to say? Very well then, I'll have you put on trial for all those horrible crimes you committed later today and I expect that you don't have any ideas about lying to defend yourself, do you?" threatened Bill.

There was no answer from Dimitri, but Chelmey did cut in, "It's unusual to give a suspect a trial so soon after finding him."

"Do not question my orders!" Bill roared, "I want that man brought before a judge before the day is through."

"Very well, Prime Minister!" Chelmey replied, saluting as Bill walked out. The two officers then made to follow him.

Before leaving, Barton whispered into the cell, "I'm sorry to hear about what happened to Celeste, she seemed like a nice person…"

And then they were gone, leaving Dimitri alone in his cell until the proceedings began. He knew that he wouldn't have to wait long, Bill would want to get this done before there was any risk of the lies he'd woven being undone by someone who had been there during the incident. Imagine that, little Bill with his gruff manner and impatience who had murdered many had now gone on to become the most important man in the country. The world was a funny place like that.

None of that mattered, however. What mattered to Dimitri was that he went on trial and was arrested for what had happened, making sure there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Claire was dead. Even if they did doubt him, they couldn't prove that what he was saying wasn't true. If the last thing he could do to help Claire was free her from the chains that tied her to that incident then that would be what he would do.

He didn't try to check if Layton's ghost was around as he was dragged from the cell to be put on stand. Because he wanted to help Claire through his own means for once, not the instructions of someone else.

In contrast to the dim cell, the courtroom was bright and noisy. Somehow Bill seemed to have gathered quite an audience in such a short space of time. The explosion might have been hushed over, but Bill never could stop people whispering between the cracks. So many wanted to know the truth of what had happened on that day.

"We are gathered here for the trial of Mr. Dimitri Allen," started a stern-looking old judge, "How do you plead?"

"Guilty," Dimitri answered.

"But he can't be," called one of the lawyers, whom Dimitri assumed had been assigned to him by the court. The man had spiky black hair and an honest face. Dimitri pitied him. "I'm sorry, your honour, but none of this adds up."

"If you feel there are holes in this story then, by all means, share them with us," the Judge replied.

The attorney gave it his best effort, Dimitri handed that to him. There were so many faults with Bill's accusations on account of it all being fabricated, but the Prime Minister had been provided with years to come up with answers to these flaws and managed to cut the lawyer off at every angle. Not helping was the fact that Dimitri wanted to be convicted and was therefore not cooperating with the defence at all.

"That's everything," the lawyer sighed, after a while, "This still all seems very wrong to me but I don't have anything left to present, your honour."

"Well then, if that is truly all I am left with no choice but to declare the defendant-"

"Hold it!" called a voice from the door.

Everyone turned to see a red-haired woman, clutching a very beaten top hat and being followed by a young girl, standing there.

The judge started, "Madam, who do you think-"

"This just keeps getting better and better," Bill cut him off, "Claire Foley! She doesn't look very dead to me, Dimitri!"

Dimitri looked over at her from the stand, eyes wide in pure horror.

"Claire! Why did you come here? I did all of this so that you'd have a chance!" he cried out.

"I know that," Claire said, smiling, "And I thank you for that. But I think these people want to know the truth about what happened back then." She held forward the hat she'd been carrying.

"Looks like it's just a hat that's seen better days to me," commented the judge.

But Bill knew what it was, roaring, "It is nothing! Remove it and this woman from this court!"

"I'm afraid we can't do that, sir," said Inspector Chelmey, who had walked in after Claire, "Because like it or not she's a suspect and is therefore involved in this trial. The evidence she's brought with her has been… revealing to say the least."

"Let's hear what the woman has to say then," the judge said, much to Bill's dismay.

Taking a stand, Claire began, "I'd like to thank Inspector Chelmey for being present with me throughout this little investigation. Without him and his men I'd have never been able to get the evidence I needed to bring you all what you need to hear." She could see Chelmey trying not to meet Bill's accusing eyes before she went on. "This top hat was found at the laboratory where the explosion took place. A lab that has been cut off from everyone except the police since that incident. And I can tell you that it belonged to one of the victims, Hershel Layton, because I gave it to him as a present on the day of the explosion."

There was some noise from the audience, as Chelmey confirmed, "We had it tested before we came. There were traces of hairs on it that matched those of Layton's."

"What does it matter?" Bill argued, "No one doubts that Layton was there during the explosion."

"What matters is what else we found on that hat," Chelmey replied, "Because your story has always been that Dimitri and Claire forced both Layton and yourself to take part in your experiment, but that the two of them fled from the crime scene, leaving you there in your injured state to take the blame. But when we checked this hat over we only found evidence of yours and Layton's DNA on it, not Dimitri or Claire's."

"They just didn't touch the hat!" countered Bill.

"We had thought of that, it's true," agreed Chelmey, "So we had Claire here testify about her location at the time of the explosion."

"I told him that I'd been visiting a friend, namely Dimitri, when it happened," Claire continued, "And that was when we came across an unexpected piece of evidence. I'd made a call to Hershel's house that night trying to find him after the explosion. With some difficulty and cooperation from the phone service, the Inspector managed to trace back that call all these years later to confirm my location. Why would I have been calling him if I knew where he was? How could I have gotten out so quickly if I was there?"

"You… you… wanted to make an alibi…" Bill stammered, but his argument was weak, "…You wanted to hide what you did…"

"Hershel was my boyfriend! I had no need or want to ever harm him!" Claire shouted, "The only one who's been making up stories here is you, Bill! You are hiding what you did all those years ago when you tricked an innocent man into getting into an unstable machine that you thought would lead you to fame and fortunate!"

"No! Nooooo! You can't!" Bill screamed, and then he pointed a finger at the judge, "Erased it from the record! Erase everything she's said from the record! I'll pay you any amount of money, just arrest that woman!"

"I'm afraid we do not accept bribes here, Prime Minister," the judge answered, "Her testimony, combined with your reaction, are conclusive enough evidence for me make my decision. There are still many holes that need to be answered during your court proceeding at a later date, but for now I can safely find the defendant, Dimitri Allen, not guilty!"

There was a cheer from those who knew them, from Flora, Chelmey and Barton, as well as from people like Katia and Lady Dahlia who had come to watch. It was a small cheer compared to the mass confusion from the rest of the court, but for all it mattered it might have been the loudest cheer in the world.

Claire ran over to where Dimitri was standing, looking lost, at the stand.

"You're free! We did it, we cleared our names!" she cried, hugging him tightly.

"H-how did you…?" he stuttered, not knowing if it was appropriate to hug her back or not.

She looked up at him, quietly confirming, "Hershel told me. He told me everything about what happened and what you've done and… and why you kept it from me. I'm sorry, I really am."

"You have no reason to be sorry," he whispered, "You didn't-"

"If you're going to dare say it then I'll cut you off right now," Claire scolded, "You did not kill Hershel. The man who did is being taken away to be put on trial like he deserves. And I'm… sorry that you've lived with the pain of me accusing you for all these years…"

"It was… no problem," Dimitri lied.

"It was though. You did everything for me even though I could only compare you to Hershel and… and I want you back," she said, tears creeping into the corners of her eyes, "…I never realised until you were gone just how much I need you to be there. Please come back…"

"Of course I'll come back," he soothed, only just noticing now that he was crying himself, "Flora is like a daughter to me and you're… well, you're…"

He was no good with this. Not like Hershel. Hershel always knew exactly the right thing to say to a girl. But maybe… she liked being able to take control of Dimitri's bumbling uncertainty. And Claire promised herself that would be the last comparison between the two of them that she'd make.

Reaching up, Claire kissed him deeply. She could tell he was nervous, even with her eyes shut, but that soon melted into how natural this seemed to feel. All the years of being awkward and not knowing how to act around each other disappeared in one single moment, when both of them realised what it was that they wanted. This felt right.

They pulled away, holding each other and trying to ignore the whistle from someone in the audience.

"Well it's about time," Chelmey commented.

"B-but, wh-what about… Um, y-you already have a boyfriend…" Dimitri stammered.

"My boyfriend past away ten years ago and I know that he wants me to be happy," Claire answered, "Being with you makes me happy. Be realistic, Dimitri, we live together and raise a child together. If you'd be willing to… to try, I'd like to go the full distance and b-be your… well, your girlfriend."

There was no need to answer that. He knew that he would devote every moment of his life to making her happy, that she was the only one who he'd ever loved and he wanted, so much, to be with her.

"There could be no greater honour, nor anything that I want more," he whispered, watching her giggle at how dorky that sounded.

This time, it was Dimitri who leaned in to kiss her.

And the crowd, even those who had no idea about any of this, cheered and whistled loudly for them. An audience loves a happy ending, after all.

Only Flora, amidst the noise, looked around to wonder where that top hat had gone. She was sure that Claire had put it down on the stand, but now it was no where to be seen. Oh well, she reasoned to herself, it probably wasn't very important anyway.

The hat returned from its battered, dead state to looking as new as it had done on the day he'd received it once it was held in Layton's hand. It had past on, served its purpose and now belonged to the spiritual world like he did. Could a hat die? For once, Layton didn't care about the answer, he just wanted his hat.

"It suits you," Clive said, looking up at him.

"Thank you," said Layton, adjusting it on his head, "Now come along, Clive, we still have much to do."

And leaving them with his blessings, Hershel Layton disappeared from the lives of Dimitri and Claire for good. Even if he wanted to, he could not have said goodbye and he knew that. For neither of them were distressed anymore.

…They had both found true happiness.


	8. Epilogue

Notes – So, the question of what happened to Luke in all of this is answered. This chapter does contain some spoilers for the Spectre's Call, so just be cautious if you're avoiding them.

* * *

><p>Clive felt sort of nervous as he waited outside of the courthouse for Layton, who had been watching his friends leave for the last time.<p>

He knew that this was it. Layton had completed his tasks in this world and would now be able to move on to the 'true afterlife'. Whatever that was. While on the other hand, Clive had to stay here. Seeing Bill Hawks, the man responsible for his parents' death, brought to justice should have been enough to put his soul at ease and allow him to move on, but it hadn't been. Because Clive had wanted Bill to suffer at his own hands. Perhaps he was sick and wrong, but because he couldn't have that satisfaction he could never be truly at peace.

So that meant having to say goodbye to Layton, who was now walking over to him.

"Well, I can say that I think you deserve this, for all the things you've done," Clive started, trying to sound casual.

"Whatever do you mean, my boy?" Layton asked.

"You know, moving onto the afterlife," confirmed Clive.

"Oh, but I'm not ready to do that yet, there's still far too much to do," Layton corrected.

"But you said to Claire that you'd never see her again," Clive argued.

"First of all, I did ask you not to listen in to my conversation with her," said Layton, but it was in quite a light-hearted way that showed he wasn't really annoyed, "But I didn't lie to her. I will never see her or Dimitri again. They are at peace now and it would be unfair to trouble them further. However, that does not mean my tasks are done."

"So does that mean… you're going to stick around?" Clive asked, hopefully.

"Of course. I wouldn't leave without you anyway, you are my friend," Layton told him.

Clive felt elated to hear that. He never expected to develop a friendship with someone he hadn't even known in life, but he knew now that as long as he could continue travelling with Layton that he'd be happy.

He reached up to hug the Professor's middle.

"Thank you," Clive mumbled into Layton's chest.

"You're more than welcome. Now come on, we've got to meet the next person who needs our help," said Layton.

And so they went. Layton knew there was still so much for him to do. Perhaps in some cases he was far too late, but all he could do was try. He could feel the laugh of a masked man he was never there to stop, the silent sorrows of a lady dressed in yellow who he'd never met but felt so important to him, the pain of a group of friends from his days as a student whose lives were in messes, and one fellow student in particular was having a tough time with his son…

…It was the son in particular who Layton knew he had to help.

A little boy dressed in blue, not much older than Clive, sat in the wreck of his home and wished that someone had answered his distress call. His family were too stubborn to leave but there was nothing in Misthallery now. The Golden Garden had been tainted, the spectre had crushed everything and there was nothing Luke could have done to help the people who he once called friends.

If only there had been someone to help…

"Luke Triton, I presume?"

For a moment, Luke thought he was going mad. There were two people standing in his room, almost transparent. A man in a top hat and a young boy who looked a lot like him.

"Who are you?" Luke asked, walking closer.

"Can he actually see us?" Clive said to Layton.

"Yes, he can," Layton confirmed, "And to answer your question, Luke, my name is Hershel Layton, a Professor of Archaeology. This is my assistant, Clive."

Reaching out to try to touch them, Luke went on, "Um, what are you doing 'ere?"

"We've come here to help best we can. And I dare say we can't do anything without you're assistance, if you'd be so kind," Layton answered.

"You need me t' help, um, stop bad things 'appening to the town? Will it be really dangerous?" Luke pressed.

"Very dangerous. It's only fair that you know that beforehand. So, would you be willing to put yourself at risk to help aid us?" said Layton, regarding him seriously.

Luke thought of all that had happened to him three years ago, when his home had been crushed and he'd been powerless to help. How much he had wanted to do something about it or else have someone come to save him…

"…I'd be 'onoured, Professah Layton," Luke replied.

To seal the deal, they did the motion of shaking hands.

Luke's life would never be the same again, but being a ghost's apprentice might just have been the best thing that ever happened to him.


End file.
